Puella Magi
by xTheo
Summary: Hinata holds a secret bigger than anyone could imagine, one that could change everything. She is a magical girl. Gifted from her spirit-guide Kyubey with unimaginable power and given a single wish to be granted at her leisure, Hinata fights the witches that lurk beneath the human-eye and the ever-present darkness that threatens to tear apart her very existence.
1. Chapter 1

**Hinata holds a secret bigger than anyone could imagine, one that could change everything. She is a magical girl. Gifted from her spirit-guide Kyubey with unimaginable power and given a single wish to be granted at her leisure, Hinata fights the witches that lurk beneath the human-eye and the ever-present darkness that threatens to tear apart her very existence.**

...

**Chapter 1: New beginnings**

"Hinata-san! Don't do it, it's too dangerous!"

"I have to Homura-chan, don't worry."

She ran through the crowd of 30 puppets, samurai-sword in hand and dark-indigo hair swaying behind her. Akemi feared for her friend's life, they'd never had to fight so many at once before and Hinata had already done most of the fighting, with her slashing through the occasional obstacle or just navigating them through the circus-like maze. Akemi watched in anguish as her best friend found the last key to unlock the third door. Hinata defeated the last of the puppets, unlocked the door and jumped up over thirty metres to get through, pulling Akemi with her.

They met the witch head-on. It was the largest one so far, almost the size of her village, with thousands of glittering ribbons that lashed out and tried to stab at her. Hinata scaled the building with her usual shinobi-like grace, her lavender kimono jacket trailing behind her and whipped back by the speed that she moved. Awkwardly stumbling behind her was Homura Akemi, her best friend who'd arrived in her dimensional plane at just the right moment to help her defeat the witch.

"Oh no, the genjutsu's taking effect!" Hinata immediately performed her kaiten and created a wind barrier to keep out the shimmering haze of a genjutsu attempting to manipulate her and Homura-chan. "I need you to get to the middle and shut down its inner-workings Homu-chan. Can I trust you to do so?"

"H-hai Hina-chan." The girl trembled with nerves and Hinata took hold of her shoulders, bringing her in for a reassuring hug. The girl wore a strange uniform of some sort, which she'd explained was from her school. Consisting of a blazer, white blouse and very short skirt with thigh-high dark stockings and heavy shoes. Her super-long hair sat on each side of her face in two large plaits and with the red-framed big glasses over her huge eyes, she looked cute in a nerdy way. She felt insignificant however, compared to Hinata Hyuuga, who was beautiful and brave and kind all at once.

Homura returned the hug to her friend and snaked her right hand around to her left wrist, releasing the mechanism that froze everything around them in a time interval that would give her the time to destroy the giant body they stood on. "I have to save Hina-chan, this isn't going to end like it did in the other dimension with Kaname-chan." She stumbled along the side of the mass that was the witch, keeping as far away from the empty space of the nether they stood in and hoping to Kami she didn't trip.

When she reached a small opening on the side of it she crawled in without a moment's hesitation, pulling out the last of the explosives she kept in the null-space behind her wrist-shield. With a flourish of her match that sparked the wick before it too froze in time, she nodded resolutely and crawled backwards out to the open air.

'Are you there Homura?'

That's right! The mental connection she kept with Hinata! Homura tuned into the link they had as she made her way back. 'I've planted the bombs inside, but we're going to be attacked as soon as I release my hold on time. I'm almost with you again.'

'Okay Homu-chan, I'll be ready.'

'Mmh.'

Homura reached Hinata and released the stop, allowing the chaos to continue. Hinata was thrown down mid-spin from her kaiten and looked around wildly. "How long?"

"Thirty seconds, let's go!" Hand in hand the two girls ran to the edge of the witch's body and took a leap of faith off the side. They landed on top of some of the floating debris, keeping their eyes open and carefully watching every swirling pattern, every colour that looked deceitfully innocent. There was too much to keep track of and so the girls found themselves falling endlessly, before the huge explosion behind them propelled them forward and showered them with ash and a background of black smoke.

They were falling what felt like forever and Hinata found herself confused. "Homu-chan, what…"

She gasped, looking around as the wind whipped her hair in all directions. She was all alone, with swirling colours and hazy images passing by in the blink of an eye. All she did was fall, further and further, deeper and deeper down into the nether. "Homura! Come back! I need you!" Her words were met with silence and the sound of rushing wind passing her ears. Her tears rose above her as she spread her limbs out, letting herself fall.

Hinata opened her eyes and met the blank white ceiling of her bedroom, sighing. It was the same dream she'd been having for weeks now, about the girl who could stop time that she'd found herself trying her best to protect. It was only for a moment that she was allowed to ponder on what such dreams meant, before a knock sounded on her door. "Hinata-sama, it's time for your morning training session with Neji-san." Ko's voice penetrated the door and reached her ears. "Okay Ko-san, I'll be out soon."

The time had just passed on 7 in the morning in the Hyuuga compound, as Hiashi Hyuuga, head of the Hyuuga clan, meditated in his late-wife's garden under the shade of her favourite cherry-blossom tree.

He reflected on his life so far, and the accomplishments he had achieved, as well as the failures. In all honesty, his achievements had been very little. The wealth and prosperity that the Hyuuga currently experienced was a result of the hard work of his father and grandfather, rather than himself. He had managed to maintain peace and order within the clan and became an influential member of society, renowned for his feats of strength and skill as a shinobi. It was only because of him that the Hyuuga were so well-known, and their dojutsu, the byakugan, with its accompanying jyuuken-based taijutsu was something no shinobi ever wanted to face. But while he had these feats under his belt, he still hadn't lived a fulfilling life.

There were many, more important, failures and struggles to be accounted for in the life of Hiashi Hyuuga. Most of those failures were lives, of his brother Hizashi, who'd been sacrificed only a year ago after the almost-kidnapping incident. Of his nephew Neji, who'd very recently been branded with the caged-bird seal under the elder's rule and no doubt held nothing but hatred towards the reason for his father's passing, Hiashi himself. Of his wife Hitomi, who'd died due to illness during her pregnancy with Hanabi. And of his daughter Hinata, who he'd failed to protect that night. If only he'd thought things through, and handled the situation better. But no, in a blind rage Hiashi killed the Kumo-nin who dared to take his precious person in one strike, and as a result lost more than he gained.

To think that all of this could happen in the space of a year, and with only a month since Hitomi's passing, Hiashi remained strong and resolute, looking out at the world with cold, grey eyes as hard as steel. Inside he was a wreck, but he contained his emotions for the sake of his clan. For the sake of his sanity. And for the sake of his daughters, and estranged nephew Neji, all of whom needed a strong hand to guide them out of this misery.

A six year-old Hinata struggled to regain her footing, her tiny frame shaking as she pulled the navy-blue training uniform weighed down with her sweat off of her body.

"Again Hinata-sama."

She finally managed to stand back up and turned to face her opponent Neji, who watched her with a bored expression, arms folded and eyes blank and unnerving, as usual. Several meters behind him, their instructor and also her minder Ko, watched the scene of their usual daily sparring occur with a mindful eye. Hinata threw herself forward and raised a fist to strike out at her seven-year old cousin, completely missing as he tilted his head to the side and turned his body, allowing her to topple over again. "Your form was very bad that time Hinata-sama. One more time, attempt to strike him with your chakra, not just your physical strength."

'Or what little physical strength you have, you are a six year-old girl after all…' Ko refrained from saying these last words as they were unnecessary and would show disrespect to the main-branch family he'd been sworn to serve. He watched the young heiress make one last swipe at her older cousin before falling back down, this time for good. "Pathetic. I want to stop these training sessions, they serve no benefit to me." Neji's words were directed to Ko, who only frowned at him. "As her older cousin and branch-family member, it is your duty to protect and watch over our future leader."

"This weakling, our future leader? I'd sooner prefer they reinstated Hanabi as heiress, she doesn't cry as much at least." The older boy shot him a cold glare for saying such disrespectful things, but just when he was charging his fist, ready to knock some sense into the boy a tiny protest of "No!" could be heard from the ground. "Ko-san, don't hurt Neji. Please, it's my fault that he said such things, for being weak. I deserve to suffer." Neji merely snorted and stalked back into the house to get ready for breakfast and classes at the academy. Hinata picked herself up from the ground when he left and turned towards the corridor where her bedroom was, Ko trailing behind her.

"Hinata-sama, as the future head of our clan you must command respect within your disciples. You shouldn't allow yourself to be treaded on by the likes of your cousin, even if you wish him to be more like an older brother towards you." Hinata simply nodded meekly, too tired to fight the older boy's words. She bowed to him and closed her door to shower and change while Ko waited outside. Then, when she was ready, he accompanied her to the dining hall where a small breakfast of rice and seaweed, her father and the usual glaring Neji waited amongst the elders and other branch-members who looked at her just as coldly.

"Neji was telling us of your daughter's shortcomings this morning in training Hiashi. You need to take a more active role in strengthening her." Mobaku, one of the elders, started. Hinata kept her head down, letting the bangs fall over her eyes so no-one could see the tears welling up at their harsh words. "I do not expect a lot from her at such a young age. She needs time to grow." was Hiashi's reply, only to be met with a disapproving hiss from another of the more outspoken elders, Gozu. "She doesn't have the time Hiashi, we have been facing a crisis for months now! We need to show the true strength of the Hyuuga, and a leader and future-leader who exemplifies that strength so everyone will know that we cannot be taken lightly. What we need is…"

Hiashi activated his byakugan faster than Gozu could blink, and that action alone was more threatening than anything he could have done otherwise. The veins bulged around his eyes and his killing-intent filled the room, making Hinata duck her head and cower in freight while the elders sucked in their breaths. "Do not tell me what we need! I am the head of the clan and I know what's best for it. Now…" his eyes turned towards his fearful daughter, who struggled not to cry but was quickly failing, then towards his nephew, whose eyes were also wide in fear but still cold. He deactivated his dojutsu and calmed himself down enough that the tension left the room, but it was only to be replaced with awkwardness and silence. "… Regarding my daughter. Hinata, if I hear that you are not improving in your training against Neji, and with Ko, I will be forced to train you myself, using my own methods. Know this, you have been let off lightly training with Ko, I would never take things so easily."

The words made her freeze in her seat, eyes widening in horror at the thought of taking her father away from his important work as clan-head. Hinata knew her father was a busy man, having to attend council-meetings almost every day to discuss the future of the clan and the village. When he wasn't making allies he was fighting and training, against five other opponents at a time at the very minimum. He was so strong that even the Hokage feared her father, and exclaimed many times how glad he was to have Hiashi as an ally rather than an enemy.

But her father was only this strong because he'd pushed himself so hard. Hinata feared what that same kind of treatment would do to her, for she was not strong enough.

She never would be.

"Ko, I don't want to train with father."

The two were walking to the academy, Neji having ran ahead of them and arrived in the building long ago while Hinata maintained a slow pace and Ko kept his place to the right and one step behind her. "I don't want you to train with your father. What he said at breakfast was true, about not taking you as easily as I have. You need to start training seriously Hinata, otherwise I fear for your future." Hinata felt her eyes tear up once again, saddened at the prospect of working even harder, even though she'd been training five hours a day so far with very little improvement. These thoughts were interrupted momentarily by a shove to the side as someone pushed their way past her followed by the shouting of young boys.

"Oi! Get back here Uzumaki!"

"Suck it Agari!"

Hinata felt the familiar redness creep up her cheeks and kept her head down. No doubt by accident, but her crush had just pushed his way past her and shoved her down in the process, running from the kids she'd come to consider her bullies if Agari was part of the group. "Move it Hyuuga!" She crawled to the side and Ko ran over to help her up while giving all of the kid's death-stares. "Savages, the lot of them!" Hinata straightened herself up and finally let a single tear spill out, her emotions in too much of a disarray for her to keep a hold on them. "I'm going into class now Ko-san, goodbye!" Ko tried to stop her but she rushed off into the academy-building without another word.

For Hinata, being the shy and quiet type meant sitting in the very back and keeping to herself. The class was very clearly divided into little cliques. She didn't know much of the class because she didn't ever talk to anyone, but there were a few characters who'd distinguished themselves in her eyes due to them being the future heads of their own clans. There was the Nara boy, who did nothing but stare out the window, and the Akimichi who sat next to him and ate endless packs of potato chips. They were located to the far left of her, closest to the windows. The Yamanaka girl had sat next to her on their first day of school last year and talked her ear off, but she was a social person and tended to move around the classroom. Currently she sat next to the Haruno, who was the top-kunoichi in the class and sat at the front row in the middle. They were both ogling at another young boy with dark hair, the Uchiha, who sat with some people she didn't know and kept his head down in a book, pretending not to notice that the majority of the girls in the class were looking at him with lovey-dovey eyes.

The door slammed open and the Inuzuka ran in followed by his cute little white puppy named Akamaru. He jumped over the desktops and made for the middle row, right next to the stoic Aburame. Thanks to their parents being good friends (however unlikely such an alliance was) they were good friends as well. Hinata felt she could have sat next to them too, because Hiashi held a good rapport with Shibi Aburame, but Tsume Inuzuka, Kiba's mother, thought he was stuck-up and so she didn't want to approach Kiba in case his feelings were the same way towards herself.

"Alright class, settle down!" Their instructor, Iruka Umino, had finally arrived and made the class of 27 quieten so he could begin teaching them. 26 actually, for there was still one person yet to arrive.

"Wait up sensei!"

The door slammed open one more time and Iruka-sensei sighed, rubbing the side of his face. "Always have to make an entrance… take a seat Naruto."

"You got it Iruka-sensei!" The blonde boy jumped over the front desk, right next to a fuming Haruno-san who bopped him over the head. "You're late! Idiot…"

"Nice to see you too Sakura-chan!"

"Hmph." While the blonde boy with blue eyes gave her a goofy smile she simply ignored him. Hinata sighed, saddened by the thought of her crush being mistreated, and maybe a little jealous.

"So today in class we'll be learning about the different chakra-paths in the human body, we start off with the biggest tenketsu-points located in the shoulder joints and…" the droning voice of Iruka-sensei lulled a third of the class to sleep while another third listened and wrote notes and the last third did various other things. Naruto fidgeted in his seat, feeling that uncomfortable sensation of someone watching him. Kiba was passed out with Akamaru chewing at his hooded jacket and Shino, Sakura and Sasuke all listened intently to the lecture, they were the three smartest in the class for a reason after all.

Shikamaru and Choji hadn't changed any of their habits from the moment they'd arrived and sat down, staring out the window and eating away, and Ino went from dozing off to staring at her nails and wishing she could paint them.

Hinata sat in the back and daydreamed, about Naruto, about being stronger and finally earning her cousin and father's respect, about cinnamon buns and random things in general.

'I wish I could make these dreams a reality…'

A movement caught her eye and she turned towards it, finding the strangest sight she'd ever seen. Floating across the ceiling, was a creature that looked like a cross between a white cat and a floppy eared bunny, with pink eyes, a fluffy white tail and long bangs on each side of its face with golden rings around each bang that stayed in place without even touching the bangs.

Her eyes widened in surprise. This creature… she'd seen it in her dreams but… it just couldn't possibly be real. Especially since the cat-bunny was jumping from student's desks and nobody was reacting, it was almost like no-one could see it, though Akamaru let out an instinctive growl feeling the faint presence of said animal.

"Kyubey-san? Am I hallucinating?"

"Fraid not kiddo. I've come to make you an offer you couldn't possibly refuse!"

...


	2. Chapter 2

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**Chapter 2: Konoha's first Puella Magi!**

The two stood face-to-face on top of the academy rooftop. It was after-school and the moment that Hinata had felt a slight dreaded feeling towards. She knew she wouldn't have long before Ko came looking for her, so she needed to make this meeting quick. Though why she was bothering to keep this discreet when no-one could see Kyubey wasn't something she could really explain, other than not wanting to be seen talking to thin air.

"I'm still having trouble believing all of this Kyubey-san. How can I be sure you're not just a figment of my imagination?"

The cat-bunny's ears twitched slightly, its pink eyes turning towards her as it jumped onto the small bench she sat upon. "There's a simple solution of course, we'll have to go the nether!"

"The… the nether?" before she could give a word of protest the creature (Hinata still wasn't sure what exactly to call Kyubey, she'd never seen a creature like it in her reality before now) jumped up into the air and opened up the strange pink symbol on his back, releasing what looked like the night sky which came spilling out. It crept towards her and Hinata found herself encompassed in darkness, save for the occasional twinkle of a star in the distance that now surrounded her. "This is too impossible to be real! And yet, here I am…"

She stood back up and the bench she'd sat upon disappeared along with the rest of the universe. "You believe me now Hinata-chan?" Kyubey asked, licking at her paw with that permanent round-eyed, bemused expression. "Well I… I suppose so. You are the Kyubey from my dreams right? I just want to be sure."

"I have many lives, so the one from your dreams is technically me..."

"Umm… what does that mean?"

'It means your friend Homura-chan killed me in your dreams. Several times in fact. But no need for you to know of course…' Kyubey kept these conceited thoughts to itself and simply shrugged with a cutesy eye-smile, aiming to make the young Hyuuga relax as much as possible.

"Alright, about the deal. As the protector of the universe it's my job to fight off the darkness that you humans do not normally see. I can't do this alone though, I need human girls to become magic-girls and fight the 'witches' off for me, and I've been watching you for a while now Hinata-chan. You have all the qualities needed for a good puella magi."

"Really? I'm flattered that you think I'm worthy of such an honour Kyubey-san but… but…"

"But what?"

Kyubey tried its best to express surprise. Hinata's sad expression confused her slightly, Kyubey hoped it didn't mean she was going to turn the offer down.

"I'm just… well… what I mean to say is… I don't understand why you would choose me, and not someone beautiful, smart and strong like Sakura or Ino. What I really mean to say is, why me?"

"Why you? Why, because you were the chosen one!"

Kyubey jumped down from the high point it had been floating across and made its eyes level with Hinata's. "You possess a very rare quality that distinguishes you from every other girl in this village, one so rare that it only shows up in one girl in every single universe."

"What you possess is…" the fluffy white tail curled itself around her neck as Kyubey moved very close to her ear. "A heart of gold, and a spirit and soul purer than anyone else in this world. It is because of those qualities that you are fit to be a magi. And hey, that thing about me granting you one wish, any wish at all, can wait until later. You can still work for me as a magic girl and make the wish later. It's all up to you Hinata-chan, just know that I can make all of your dreams come true, if you choose to make this deal with me."

'Of course, everything has its price.'

Hinata took a step back from Kyubey and looked off into the inky distance, remembering everything she aspired for in life. They were impossibly big dreams right now, the love and approval of her father, cousin and Naruto-kun. But through the eyes of the creature she would later come to know as her spirit-guide, who would help her fight these "witches" and fend off the "darkness" in the world, Hinata saw the possibility that she could be strong. Strong enough to protect all of her precious people.

"I… I want to do this trial thing with you Kyubey, and maybe later I'll make my wish and become a permanent magic-girl. For now though, I ask that you teach me what it is I'd have to do."

"Alright!"

Across the universe another young girl stood crouched over the edge of her own universe, looking down through the depths of a black-hole. Hazy images drifted across the depths, revealing to her the secrets of a world she had yet to get to.

"Hinata-chan, just wait for me. I know Kyubey is going to take you on your first witch hunt today but don't worry, you'll do fine because I'll be here watching over you."

Homura closed her eyes and brought her hands together in a silent prayer, hoping for the best outcome. 'Hinata-chan is going to be fine, she's going to be better than fine. She's going to be awesome!'

She knew this for sure, because she was Hinata Hyuuga's guardian angel.

"Th-that's… a witch?"

Kyubey nodded its head eagerly, jumping from Hinata's arms onto the ground. They were crouched behind pillars of white marble leading into a coliseum sloping downwards. In the very centre sat the "witch". It was hideously deformed, somewhere between a jack in the box and a shark with rows of jagged teeth jutting out of a gash of a mouth and multi-coloured gills lining its torso. It was currently munching on a faceless bird, tearing at it with snarling, bone-cracking noises. Bits of flesh and blood were sent in every which way making Hinata want to hurl.

"Just relax Hinata-chan, this one's small."

"Sm-small?" It was almost twice her size!

She was trying her best to recall what she'd done to defeat the witches in her dreams. It seemed an impossible task without the help of Homura-chan, who'd been the more experienced magic-girl and set out their plan of attack and navigation. Hinata was simply the power behind all of those attacks.

"Kyubey-san, is there any way you can bring Homura-chan here to help me?"

She'd never thought to ask that before. Kyubey turned towards her however and simply shook its head, "No silly! She's busy protecting her own universe!"

"O-oh… darn. I was never good at planning, I just attack blindly."

"Considering your power, that will work 90% of the time. And I can guarantee it'll work with this low-level monster too, ganbatte Hinata!"

Kyubey took the liberty of pulling something out of its back and batting it towards the Hyuuga with its fluffy white tail. Hinata caught it and opened her fist, shocked to see a beautiful gem encased in gold at the top and bottom, almost the shape of a teardrop. The stone within glowed a brilliant shade of violet and felt very warm.

"This is your soul-gem, it's the source of all your power. You'll be fine the first time you use it, but there's something I need to warn you about…"

Hinata's huge, white eyes darted between the soul-gm in her palm and the face of Kyubey. "What is it?"

"Your soul-gem deteriorates little by little every time you use, which is why you must defeat the witches. Not only to rid the world of such evil, but when killed, they drop things called 'grief-seeds' which replenish your soul gem so that you can use it again."

"Grief-seeds? Okay. I guess all I have to do now is… transform…"

"Of course! Just hold the gem to your heart and imagine what kind of outfit and weapons you want. They'll be infused with the magic in your gem."

Hinata needed to hurry, not having the luxury to really think on what she wanted with the terrifying noises coming from below and the nagging urge that the witch may discover them at any moment. With hazy memories of what she'd worn during her battles with Homura-chan, Hinata brought the soul-gem up to her chest and a golden light poured out of it, lifting her into the air.

Her transformation was a beautiful sight to behold. Gone was the bulky fur-jacket that she'd recently taken to wearing, the dark-navy shorts and short hair that made her look tomboyish. It burned away in the golden light and was replaced with a flowing lavender-silk kimono-robe with a white shirt beneath, a battle-skirt made of layers and layers of white lace and white leggings beneath that. Her feet adorned cute little lavender ballet-slippers with ribbons securing them up to her calves. While not exactly the outfit from her dream, it would have to do. Her hair had grown past her waist and spilled down in two pig-tails either side of her face. She marvelled at every part of her outfit, smoothing out the material and bringing her silken strands up to her eye-level.

Across her back two sheaths lay draped across each shoulder. The left shoulder held two dozen long, silver arrows with glinting metal blades and special tags at the end. The other shoulder was heavier, and she tugged at the instrument within. With a slight heave she pulled out a long, wooden staff with a key-shaped end, the key-head being a warped version of her soul-gem.

A crossbow mechanism ran along the length of her left forearm, in a way that she could raise the limb in front of her to draw and fire arrows.

'It's amazing what the mind can come up with' Hinata thought with a small grin. With this new battle-gear, she was starting to feel confidence flowing through her, warming her from within.

"That's some interesting battle-gear Hinata-chan. You better be ready to use it though because you've been spotted!"

Her smile faded and she paled in fear, looking down the coliseum to the witch, who'd stopped eating its meal and was facing her way directly.

'Hinata, you can do this!'

She raised her left arm high above her, drawing one of the silver arrows out and raising the tension of the bow-string as the arrow was backed into it.

'It's just like your dream, no, it is your dream!'

The arrow was cocked and ready to go. Exhaling slowly, she stilled her body and closed in on the target. By now the witch had leaped up with a roar of bloodlust and was bounding towards her at an increasingly rapid pace.

'You were always so beautiful and strong to me Hinata-chan. You were everything I aspired to be, as well as my best friend.'

It was Homura-chan, talking to her in her head! Hinata grinned as she released the arrow, watching it whistle through the air in a perfect arch before embedding itself right in the witch's forehead.

"I need to thank you Homura-chan, for your love of explosives inspired me to make some adjustments in the original plans for my own artillery."

She upturned her wrist and found the button on the underside of the leather-strap binding the bow to her arm. Unceremoniously pushing the button, a tiny beeping noise could be heard. "10 beeps… 9… 8…"

The witch attempted to paw off the arrow with mangled bony claws, to no avail. It simply ignored the stinging pain and returned to bounding towards her.

"3… 2… 1… Boom."

It went off in a violet plume of smoke and blue-fire, making the witch let out a screech of pain as his forehead exploded.

Hinata leaped up to avoid the majority of the heat and debris, bringing her staff high above her head. She activated her byakugan and could see witch on its hind-legs, clawing at its forehead still. "Come on now, lean forward a bit."

It was almost like the monster heard her. It rocked back and forth a few times, finally curling over so the massive, fleshy, charred crater that used to be its forehead lay at her knees.

"Sealing-art, caged-bird seal!"

She drew the symbol of ying and yang in the air before touching the witch's forehead.

The witch was startled to find it could no longer move, its body felt limp the arms fell to its sides as beady, black eyes focused on the human in front of it. A magic girl, with glowing, moon-like eyes. She moved her staff to the left and the witch was forced to follow.

"You're… controlling him."

She moved her staff to the right and the witch slithered along with it, unable to do otherwise. Kyubey watched on in amazement, another rare power manifested itself in one of the magic girls. Such mysterious occurrences, Kyubey wasn't sure what brought them on, other than Hinata the only other person with a special power was Homura Akemi. There was still bad blood with Homura though so Kyubey couldn't investigate the source of that particular magic girl's powers any further. Maybe with Hinata-chan things would be different.

"How do I kill it Kyubey-san?"

"Use your gem to absorb its tainted essence." She did as the cat-bunny creature said and held her staff to the witch's face again, waiting for something to happen. It took a while, but eventually the monster's body-matter seemed to separate, fading away as it diminished in size.

Like petals, the essence of the witch was carried away by an unfelt, mystical breeze which spun around Hinata. It picked up strands of her hair with a final flourish before waning into the distance.

She was surprised to find the death of such evil could be almost… beautiful…

All that was left in its place was the so-called grief-seed, similar in size, shape and colour to a walnut, floating in mid-air. She moved towards it and cupped her palms together, plucking it out of space and feeling the weight of the object with a satisfied expression.

"You did as well as I hoped Hinata-chan, but I think we've had enough excitement for today. Ready to return?" Hinata nodded in reply to Kyubey's inquiry, still examining the grief-seed. Her battle-gear returned to her soul-gem, leaving her in her normal clothes, and she placed the soul-gem and grief-seed side by side in her hands. Almost immediately the two objects glowed again, sensing each other and drawing close. Bright white light one second, the next they merged together and the light dimmed to a soft glow, revealing the single, violet plume of her soul-gem which shone even brighter than before. She tucked it in her pocket and patted the cloth of her jacket covering it. Hinata had already come to recognise the gem as a piece of herself.

The darkness of the netherverse faded away, inky black and blue spots turned to bright patches of sky and tree canopies, the pillars of white marble became the dull grey concrete of the school rooftop and the noises of village-life could be heard again. Hinata shook her head, feeling the lightness of her short hair again, and sighed.

"You seem gloomy Hinata-chan, what's wrong?"

Kyubey was prancing on the edge of the roof, close to falling off. Not that Hinata was worried, Kyubey could fly after all. "I-it's nothing Kyubey-san, I have to go find Ko, he's probably worried sick about me."

The little girl ran off to find her overprotective guardian and Kyubey sighed, shaking its head. This girl had gone above and beyond expectations, for none of the other magic-girls had fit to the task of killing their first witch as naturally as she had.

That was in part due to the form of training Homura had bestowed upon her, by helping her fight in her dreams. It seemed the skills she taught Hinata in her dreams paid off, for they'd certainly transferred to her reality. Kyubey had no doubt that in time, Hinata would be a powerful force to be reckoned with, and couldn't wait to see how she progressed.

The cat-bunny creature was also curious to see what would become of the other magic-girl, Homura. No doubt she'd show up in this universe at some point. The question was, when?

Amazing how fast time flies when you're busy, and having fun. Hinata spent the next six years living a double-life. Every morning she trained with Ko, developing a form and fighting stance that was mediocre at best. Taijutsu had never been her true strength anyway, no, she couldn't show anybody her true strength just yet. After three hours of training in the morning, shower, dress and the usual silent breakfast with the rest of the clan. Hinata hadn't heard any more negative comments about her performance, but a cold look could express an opinion just as clearly as words.

She was almost 12 now, so Ko didn't walk her to school or pick her up anymore. She kept her head down and never talked to anyone, preferring to keep to herself, study during the lunch-breaks and head straight home after school. It resulted in her hard-earned 5th in class spot, one of the few things in her known-life to be proud of.

Not good enough for the elders apparently, who thought anything below the best was unacceptable. And considering Neji graduated top of the school last year and had already completed a C-rank and 10 D-rank missions with his genin-team… yeah, she had no chance of impressing her clan with a measly place as 5th in class.

Sometimes though, Hinata didn't walk straight home. Occasionally she found a quiet spot in the forest and meditated, or talked to Kyubey, or trained on her own. Other times she secretly followed a certain blue-eyed, blonde-haired boy to his own secret spot in the forest, and watched him train. It fascinated her, because not only was he able to go at it for hours at a time with no breaks, but as soon as he dropped to the ground in exhaustion and she thought she might have to step out and help him, he'd get back up again and pick up his kunai to throw them at a tree-stump some more. Hinata admired Naruto Uzumaki greatly. Not only was he determined and persistent, he looked out at a world that did nothing but frown upon him for some reason, and grinned straight back with an overflowing confidence. He faced the world head-on and projected a kind of persona that Hinata wished she could project herself.

When she did get home, and after the extra hours of studying, it was either more shinobi-training or sparring. She'd yet to beat Neji once in a duel, and he'd been so disgusted with her weakling-act that he refused to even consider them fighting after a while. Hanabi had stepped into sparring with her, and true to her name she was a firecracker. The power behind her strikes was explosive and effective, and Hinata found herself working very hard to keep up. Hanabi and Neji, both prodigies to the Hyuuga-style of fighting and miniature versions of Hiashi emanating the strong will of the clan, but both with their rightful titles as future clan-head unfairly stolen from them by the likes of weak little Hinata. It couldn't be helped that she was the main branch, and she was the oldest.

They were the most exhausting parts of her day, both physically and mentally. She picked herself up from the dojo floor, dragged herself to the shower again, and lay in her bed for a while before Ko knocked on her door and announced that dinner was ready.

After dinner at around 7pm, she was free to do as she wished, within the confines of the compound of course.

Hinata was currently tending to the small garden that belonged to her mother, right outside her bedroom. There was always something to occupy her time, but to Hinata it simply felt like she didn't have enough time to do all the things she really wanted to. Which was part of the reason why she never forgot about Homura-chan. If she were here with Hinata, she could slow everything down, or even make it stop so Hinata could just take a break from it all. Too bad Homura-chan disappeared six years ago, right after her first witch-kill Hinata never saw or heard from her best friend again. It saddened her, but Hinata never lost hope that she would meet Homura-chan again someday.

9pm. Hinata looked at the clock with a small smile of anticipation, ripping off her gardening gloves and leaving them on the veranda. She closed the sliding door and drew the curtains on her bedroom windows, making sure her seals were in place such that she would be alerted of activity by outside intruders. She rummaged through her drawers and found one of her furry coats and navy pants. Although they were completely identical to her other training outfits, a tiny seal on the inside of the jacket and within the left pocket of the pants which she released with three hand-signs revealed a uniform nobody had ever seen before where she was concerned. It consisted of an all-black one-piece suit, with the majority made up of a very light and stretchy material that clung to her body and allowed her to move freely. There were hundreds of miniature buckles and holsters that needed to be individually set to mould to her limbs, all filled with weapons, some very well-concealed but harder to reach and some placed to be more easily accessible.

"Kyubey-san, time to go!"

"Is it witch-hunting tonight Hinata-chan, or is the snake lady expecting you for that anbu training you shinobi do?"

"Both, but the witch first. And we don't all do anbu-training Kyubey-san."

"Oh, pardon me for forgetting how special you are."

Hinata rolled her eyes at him. During the night, when her secret lives came into play, she became something entirely different to what her friends and family knew her as. She fastened the many straps around her arms, legs and torso, and clipped on the arm and leg braces, made from a special alloy that was light, and thin enough for her to keep her natural speed and flexibility, that covered most of her vitals. A black cloak tied around her neck, waist and under her arms, and the white kabuki mask with her signature yellow-painted sunflower on the cheek finished off the outfit.

"Anko-sensei is expecting me after midnight, but I'm in desperate need of more magic to replenish my soul-gem."

"How much of your spare magic have you been using to not have to sleep at night?"

"Almost all of it" she admitted, stretching her arms and legs to adapt to her anbu-uniform. "I'll seal this outfit away when I'm fighting the witch and transform into a magical-girl."

"You've always got it figured out Hinata-chan."

The snow-white cat-bunny with its fluffy white tail and chibi-pink eyes chuckled. Having just returned from one of the worlds created by a witch, known as "barriers", he had some valuable information to give the girl about her upcoming conquest. Unlike the netherverse, which Kyubey had created himself, the barriers were the witch's own miniature worlds, used to hide their true form from the humans.

"I spotted this one near the Hokage-monument. He's a big baddie! The malice has been infecting this human's soul for years now, but he'd contained it to the point where it manifested itself as a fully-grown witch, rather than the gradual growth that I could usually detect."

"Really? Whose malice made this witch?"

"Someone I believe you know well." Kyubey turned around to face a transformed Hinata in her battle-gear.

"You'll be facing none other than the malice of one Sasuke Uchiha!"

Her eyes grew wide in horror. "Oh… Kami…"

...

**Hey guys, Theo here. Now this story is somewhat a cross-over of the Naruto-verse with my other favourite show, "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", I recommend watching that anime because it's awesome and the artwork and design of the show is beautiful AND you'll understand all the references to the oc characters in this story. Plus it's like 12 eps 25 minutes each so you could knock the show over in less than 5 hours. I'm not creative enough to make up original characters, I just wanted to put put Hinata in frilly dresses and make her even more kawaii and fantastic than she already is. Anyway, some things to know. I like my female characters strong and found Hinata lacking, as in not-developed enough character-wise with fighting-scenes few and far between, and this story will be Hinata-centric, if you want more Naruto go watch the actual show. **

**I support all canon-ships.**

**The "netherverse" (I made the name up, hell if I know what that place is actually called) and "witches from puella magi are very diverse, pretty much a clusterfuck of randomness and sparkles (picture kyary pamyupamyu ponpon settings, only dozens of them and they're all unique and different but equally crazy). So picturing what I'm trying to describe, it's really all up to your imagination :)**

**EDIT: Later on found out that other world they go to, other WORLDS, were the barriers, all created by witches. Kyubey didn't create shit.**

**Roll with me guys, don't worry, it'll still be good.**


	3. Chapter 3

**...**

**Chapter 3: Days of Darkness**

Peace. That's what human-kind strives for, even though people cause so much conflict within themselves and towards each-other, all they really want is peace. Since the beginning of time there has always been war and peace, with a balance between the two, Yin and Yang. Away from that balance, demons were brought to life in an effort to create mass chaos and tip the scales, demons like the bijuu. Demons like the Kyuubi no kitsune, the nine-tailed fox that 12 years ago almost completely destroyed Konoha.

Naruto contemplated this while looking out the window of his hospital-bedroom to a beautiful night sky in uncharacteristic silence. His arm lay at his side, wrapped up in bandages that were a touch too snug, and on the other side of the room a peaceful Iruka-sensei with gauze across his chest lay snuggled up in his own bed, fast asleep. He'd shown Naruto exactly what being a true shinobi entailed and Naruto had never seen the man in a brighter light until now. He found the family-figure he'd always wanted in Iruka-sensei, wait… in nii-san. Earlier the man had told him to call him that, and it brought him tears to his eyes thinking that after so many years of knowing Umino Iruka, and growing close to him, he finally had someone to call family. Nothing much was going to change, other than nii-san's promise to come over and visit him with groceries because he was a growing boy and needed more than ramen in his diet, but it was the sentiment that counted.

In all honesty he was still confused about the events that had just taken place that night, it had gone by so fast with very little for him to have as a keepsake of such a life-turning event other than quickly-fading injuries and the new ninja-headband sitting on his nightstand, given to him by nii-san to show that he'd passed the genin test. It still made him feel warm inside that he would be able to graduate with his friends after almost being rejected.

In a fit of rage mid-fight, Mizuki had revealed the secret to Naruto of why he seemed to be an outcast in the village and treated as such. It was confirmed to him later by the old-man Hokage, who'd further explained that he was an orphan baby who'd had the Kyuubi-no-kitsune sealed inside of his stomach as a day-old child and it was the reason he'd been ostracised all his life. He had a million more questions running through his head though, for instance who were his parents? Did they also die during the fox's attack? And why did the fox even attack the village in the first place?

It would take a while for him to get these answers, for the old-man had simply sighed and shook his head and said not to worry, because he had more important things to worry about than the past, his future was fast approaching after all.

And old-man Hokage was right. Tomorrow, he had his last day at the academy to attend, and hopefully nii-san would be fit enough to come and say farewell to his students for the last 7 years who'd be moving up in life. There would be team-assignments to hear, his jounin-instructor to meet, training to do and missions to complete.

Naruto crawled back into bed looking out the window, a huge grin on his face. The full moon was looking especially beautiful, its emanating glow comforting him. "Tomorrow my life as a shinobi of the hidden-leaf village starts. I need to train harder than before, and longer, and then I'll be strong enough to keep the demon inside me under control, and away from the village. Then I'll be strong enough to be Hokage, and protect my precious people."

He turned on his side and closed his eyes. "And maybe Sakura will notice me and not the Uchiha bastard, and she'll finally say yes to a date. Hopefully we'll be on the same team even! Heh, I guess it doesn't matter to me who I'm with, long as it's not the teme…"

While most of the village slept peacefully, things weren't so quiet at the top of the Hokage Mountain.

Hinata glanced back every few seconds behind her as she ran, making sure not to go too fast. Close at her heels, a distorted shadow seemed to be running after her, gaining speed while the outline of a hand reached out towards her.

"Hngh, ow!" She was pulled suddenly to the ground by the hand gripping her ankle, scratching at her flesh and prying at the muddy ground below and around her. The shadow flipped her onto her back and she stilled, allowing it to drag her further down. Bringing her staff out of the sheath in her back, Hinata waited for the right moment to strike but found things were moving along too slowly.

"Come on already, pull me into your barrier!"

She slid across the ground that was a dark muddy brown and found it was turning from the colour of dirt to a substance she couldn't quite name, but it was a stark white colour that grew in intensity until she looked around and found herself in another world, one that was little more than the inside of a blank canvas. The arm dragging her came into a very apparent existence as a part of the creature she'd been looking for, Elsa Maria, the witch of shadow.

She looked like the dark silhouette of a mangled tree, her pitch-skin a stark contrast to the white of her world and the distant red sun. The hand revealed to be one of thousands of tentacles and it emitted a noise that sounded like a hum, lulling her into a sense of false peace.

'The witch of shadow was born from Sasuke Uchiha's anguish after his entire clan was massacred. It is only born to those who've known the blackest anguish in life, and can only be defeated by those who've known that darkness. To defeat her you'll need to find Uchiha-san, who is being held captive within the Elsa's barrier, and incite him to face his demons.'

Those were the words Kyubey had told her earlier, before he disappeared. Hinata had settled on calling Kyubey a boy for simplicity's sake. Other than to give briefing and basic instructions at the beginning, he was never really needed and disappeared usually. Who knows where he went, Kyubey was a creature still shrouded in mystery that Hinata didn't think she'd want to solve.

She chose that moment to upright herself and attack the witch. Bringing her staff down, a beam of light flew out from the key-head and blasted straight through the black body of Elsa.

"Let me go!"

The witch smirked at her, then turned her nose up in the air. The humming tune stopped and she opened her mouth, her voice as haunting as the melody that had been playing earlier.

"You are an insolent beast that needs to be dealt with. You're coming with me."

Hinata snorted and lifted the sleeve of her lavender kimono, pulling out a small dagger. "Who are you calling beast? Witch." She channelled her chakra into the blade and brought it down into the tentacle. It cut the appendage cleanly so she was able to escape by jumping backwards several meters. Activating her byakugan, she scanned the area, looking for Sasuke.

"Come on Sasuke, where are you?"

Extending her range of vision by another kilometre, she took a sharp intake of breath. Curled up in a small ball on the ground was the young boy, twitching violently with his eyes shut. The witch made itself known to her again and she shot more arrows, setting them off mid-air to explode and create a shroud of smoke that Hinata could hide in as she made her way towards the Uchiha.

"Sasuke, wake up!"

The Uchiha felt his whole body shaking violently, pulling him out of the terrible nightmare he'd been having of shadows suffocating him. He blinked once, immediately finding a huge pair of moon-like eyes belonging to a girl that looked very familiar.

"What the…"

"You need to get up now or we're both going to die!" Gripping his shoulders tightly Hinata brought the boy to his feet and tugged at him to leave. "Come on Sasuke, run!"

"O-oh, okay." He had no idea what was happening, other than the strange combination of screeching noises and an ethereal, haunting hum of choir-music seemingly coming from nowhere, he didn't think anything of this dream. It may feel very real, and he may have pinched himself and found that he was still unable to wake up, but the eerie scenery of mismatched shapes and hazy colours and sparkles was simply too surreal to be anything other than a dream.

"You insects scurry quickly, maybe I should save you two as a snack for later. There are more prizes to catch in that tasty little leaf-village after all, it's not like you two are going anywhere heh…"

Sasuke came to a stop when they were far enough away from the witch who'd seemed to have lost interest and crawled away in another direction.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?" he asked, crossing his arms and regarding the girl suspiciously. Hinata furrowed her delicate brow, her lips forming a straight line exactly as his did. "You don't recognise me?"

"Not off the top of my mind. You're not gushy and as annoying as the fan girls who follow me around all day, but I assume you're from class. Why am I even asking? This is all just a dream anyway."

"Sure is!" She smiled widely, patting his shoulder and pulling out her staff. "So don't question what's about to happen too much. Just know two things, one, you need to trust me, because if you don't we're both going to die."

She gave him her staff and pushed it towards his chest, allowing her chakra to transfer into his body and drawing his out so it could go into the staff. "Two, this witch was born by the darkness inside you, you're the only one who can defeat it and you'll need this weapon to help you do so. If you don't defeat the witch, and it shouldn't be too difficult because I'm here to help you of course, then we both die."

"Okay." He simply shrugged, scratching the back of his dark hair in slight confusion. "I haven't really worked with a weapon like this though, and I'm just a genin, how would I have the power to defeat something like that?"

The wooden-staff was transforming before their eyes. The key-head morphed into a hilt while a long metal blade extended downwards. "Have you worked with swords before?"

"No, not really." He held the sword handle and Hinata stepped back so he could wield it properly. "But this feels… right, somehow." He waved it through the air, feeling the balance of the blade. So light… it felt almost like an extension of his right arm.

"We have to attack the witch now or she'll disappear and leave us trapped in this world, so you'll need to get acquainted with your weapon while we make our way towards her." Sasuke paused for a second, contemplating the girl's words. He finally shrugged, "let's go then." She nodded shortly and followed closely behind him.

"Be ready to attack while I give you cover-fire." Hinata ran away from Sasuke and jumped high into the air again while Sasuke made a bee-line heading straight for the witch. She reared her head up and turned towards them with glowing red eyes, blood dripping from its mouth as the corpse of a fresh victim, its species unknown due to the mangled body, peeked out from her mouth. Sasuke snarled and sliced into her abdomen. "Release us from this place witch!"

"Hmmm let me think about it…"

Elsa watched in amusement as the boy hacked at her flesh. The boy was voracious in his attempts to wound her, sadly it wouldn't be anywhere near enough. "That's a pretty trinket you have there, boy, I want it."

"No!" The witch picked the blade up like it was a toothpick and pulled it upwards, dragging Sasuke along who'd held onto the sword still. "Hey! Could I get a little help here?"

Hinata drew two of her arrows at once, aiming for roughly the point where they would hit Elsa's abdomen and hopefully distract her enough for him to regain his offensive position. "Brace yourself for the explosion!"

Pushing the button, the witch's mid-section erupted in a haze of black flame and she howled in agony. "You. Will. Pay!"

Hinata reached the ground and her eyes widened as she saw the shadows coming towards her again. There was nowhere to run though, when the world was a desolate wasteland of bleak white contrasting to the witch herself. She tried to jump again but was pulled down by the arms that stretched upwards and outwards, surrounding her.

Darkness everywhere, filling her lungs, eyes and ears. She choked on her screams and tried to reach for her soul-gem, but realised her mistake in turning it into the sword that Sasuke was using.

"H-help m-me…"

Sasuke struggled to release the sword still held tightly in the witch's grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a hand coming out of the witch's body. It was the girl that tried to help him, her small, pale hand struggling to be free from the confines it was held within. The sight of that hand, so fragile-looking, switched something on within him. He gritted his teeth and brought his feet up to press against the witch's palm, tugging upside down at the sword with all his might.

"Release it, release me now!"

His feet glowed a bluish-black as well as the palms of his hands. With a final groan he pulled out the sword and fell towards the ground, hitting it with a loud thud.

"Give up now, I can feel the turmoil within you, it's grown with every passing day as your desire for revenge begins to overcome you, to consume you. I grow stronger with every negative emotion you have boy!"

Elsa Maria couldn't suppress the hideous giggles that threatened to spill forth and simply released them, doubling over in laughter.

It was her mistake, for she should never have underestimated the power of an Uchiha, especially one combined with a magical girl.

Sasuke rammed the sword into her stomach, this time his chakra had infused itself into the blade and he was aiming to cut out a piece of her, rather than the mindless slashing of before. He moved so quickly in getting the portion of her that contained the piece of darkness surrounding the pale hand that he even had time to drag her away.

Hinata gasped as a tiny pocket of air between the slick, oily substance that the witch was made of allowed her to breathe again. She wiped at her eyes and looked up at Sasuke, who was trying his best to swipe at the muck covering her even as his nose turned up in distaste. "This is so gross!"

"Yeah it is. Head's up Sasuke!"

The witch dived straight down on top of them in an attempt to consume them, but Hinata was too fast with her arrows. She released five at once this time, hoping they would detonate after her jutsu came into effect as at that moment she pulled herself up and began the spinning motions needed for an adaptation of one of her clan's famous techniques. Sasuke stared on in awe at the glowing, spinning girl. She was performing something so familiar to him it almost felt like she was an Uchiha, or maybe…

"I know that technique, it's just like those that one of the most well-known clans in the village use!"

"Trigrams 64-palms, rotation!" The air around them lifted as the pressure decreased. Inside the barrier Hinata created it was light, while everything outside became a vacuum.

"What is this?" Elsa Maria was confused, for only a second though. The next emotion she took on was rage, because she felt the sharp sting of five bombs setting off in her face before she managed to reach the two brats.

Sasuke watched everything around them explode, safe within the confines of the shield created by the Hyuuga girl's wind rotation technique. "Sasuke, I need you to concentrate."

"What?"

"Concentrate." The girl before him shone brighter than the sun and he held his hand over his eyes, blinded.

"It's not going to die until you come to terms with the darkness inside you, or at least come to terms with part of it."

Hinata sat down in front of him and grabbed his hands, holding the sword between them. He felt his cheeks go slightly pink, being so close. She was very pretty, now that she'd stopped moving for a second and he got to take a good look at her, with long dark hair and huge, pale eyes that glowed like the moon. If she was in his class how come he'd never noticed her before?

"Hey." She snapped her fingers in front of him and he blinked once, twice. "What?"

She shook her head. "For the last time, you need to concentrate!"

"Ugh, okay then. Concentrate on what?"

She made him get into a meditative stance, hands on his knees and legs crossed underneath him. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to dwell on his own thoughts.

He didn't question it when she appeared inside his mindscape as well, because hey, they were still dreaming after all. His mindscape was a dark, dank place with nothing around but the sound of a dripping tap that rippled the watery surface beneath their feet.

"This is kind of weird."

"My mind, my rules!" She shook her head at his childishness and walked around, hoping something would come up that she could work with.

"Sasuke. Where are your memories stored?"

"My… memories?" He took a step forward, looking around as well. "If this is my mind I suppose I just have to imagine them here." Sasuke closed his eyes and pictured them hovering in front of him. Almost immediately Hinata saw an effect, as hundreds of bubbles appeared all around them, radiating a faint green hue. She went to the nearest one and inspected its contents.

"First day at the academy, no…"

"Chased by annoying fangirls into a bathhouse? Heh…"

"Hey shut up!" Sasuke frowned at the girl as he too started sifting through the bubbles. The two walked side by side down a long and winding path, inspecting every bubble and coming up short. It seemed the further they walked the farer back into his past they travelled, as younger and younger versions of Sasuke appeared. "Oh I think… here!"

He turned towards the girl who was staring into the depths of a bubble. When he came to look at it as well, he suddenly realised how unprepared he was for this moment. "I don't think I can…"

Hinata reached out and held his hand, trying her best to emit a warm, comforting aura that would calm him down. "You need to face this Sasuke, otherwise we don't leave."

A sharp intake of breath. Images flashed past of him of details of that night that he never wanted to remember. Bodies, blood everywhere. The face of his mother, her kind smile as she told him to run away with her mangled body sprawled out on the ground and that of his father who lay face-down in a pool of his own blood. "Mom…" Sasuke felt a tear run down his cheek. He ran down the passageway of his old home, looking for his brother even though in the back of his mind a voice was screaming at him not to.

"Nii-san! Where are…" He froze in place, his eyes widening at what stood before him. "Otoutou…" Itachi didn't turn around, even as he kicked away the body of one of the clan members that Sasuke had seen him incapacitate with his own eyes. "Sasuke."

"Nii-san, how could you?" He still couldn't move. Cursing himself, Sasuke forced his feet forward and circled around the body so that he was facing Itachi, who kept his head down with his bangs covering his face. "Sasuke. I've killed everyone in the clan."

He lifted his head and Sasuke eyes grew even wider than before, when he saw his eyes. Itachi had unlocked the three tomoe of his sharingan, blood-red pupils ringed with black locked onto his and he was lost again.

"Otoutou, you're going to avenge the clan one day by killing me."

"B-but I… don't…" Sasuke shook his head resolutely, turning away from his older brother. "How can I kill the only family I have left?" A hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Face your brother Sasuke." Hinata appeared in his dream, distorting the memory further. Everything around them was beginning to fade and both kids could see this. Hinata grabbed both his shoulders and spun him around, making him face Itachi before the memory faded away again. "Face him with more resolve Sasuke!"

"I don't want to!"

Hinata frowned, shaking his shoulders roughly. This served in bringing sense back to him more than anything else and he found himself again. "I… guess… I have to. I will! I'll avenge my clan by killing my brother!" He pushed her away and began pacing back and forth, his mind going into overdrive. As he did so they seemed to fade away from the memory and even from his mindscape.

Hinata opened her eyes and looked around, stunned by what she saw. Outside of the wind barrier, the witch of shadow had grown smaller and weaker-looking, while a giant bluish-black bird was attacking her.

And it seemed to be working, the bird tore at the witch Elsa Maria's face and it screeched in pain. Hinata smiled in relief, turning back towards Sasuke though, her happiness faded slightly. The cold, black irises reflected her face but beneath that, determination was present. The explosions had stopped by now and Hinata released her shield-jutsu, continuing to watch the giant bird that was their ally in awe. Sasuke picked up the sword and ran forwards to help, this time charging the sword with his chakra.

When he cut at the witch's flesh now it cut through much quicker. Chunks of flesh were sent flying every which way and it burned off into nonexistence. With a final lunge he stuck the sword deep into the witch's chest, charging his right hand as much as he could so it released inside the body of the witch. She imploded on herself, howling in terror at the two kids and giant bird (raven) bringing about tis demise.

"Sasuke, there's an opening out of here!" Hinata ran for the hole and waved over Sasuke to follow her. He dropped back to the ground and sprinted after her, leaving the raven made of Sasuke's chakra to hold onto the witch as they made their escape. They jumped through the opening and Hinata grabbed the sword back from Sasuke, pointing it at the opening to close it.

"We… we did it!"

Sasuke was relieved, turning to face the night-sky and full moon that shone over the hidden-leaf village. He'd never been so happy to be back here, even if all of this was just a dream it seemed so very real that at some points he doubted he'd wake up from it.

"Hey, I just realised I never asked for your name." Before he could turn back to face the girl a hand-chop to the neck sent him to the ground knocked out cold. One hand on her hip with a lopsided smile, Hinata shook her head at the Uchiha. "Better get you tucked into bed, we both have a big day ahead tomorrow after all." Picking up the boy and pulling him over her back, she jumped up into the night sky in a graceful arch, heading for the village-centre. "Well, I don't exactly know where you live… eh, it shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Whoa, a shooting star!" Naruto's eyes widened as he saw a shimmering streak cut through the twinkling darkness and sat up again. Strange, but that almost looked like the silhouette of a person, or even two. "Nah, I must be seeing things. Night nii-san." A grunt from the other bed beside him made him chuckle and he rolled onto his other side, away from the window.

...

**This story isn't SasuHina (canon ships yo!), but I wanted a foundation for a sibling-relationship between those two that will be developed later in the story. Everything feels kind of muddled to me, I've updated the earlier chapters a bit and it might be slightly different if you go back and read from the beginning. I'm also not sure how long this story will go, maybe 10-15 chapters (or not). *shrugs* Just let me know what you think of how the story is going so far, if you want. **

**Expect the next chapter to be up within the next three days, after that I'll be away from the computer so I'll have to keep you waiting for a while, sorry! **

**Thank you story followers and favouriters! For the next chapter, we'll be learning a little more about how Homura and Hinata met, maybe even Madoka will make an appearance. The characters are kind of oc throughout this story, it's easier to write this with more freedom. **


	4. Chapter 4

...

**Chapter 4: Her.**

Hinata leaned back and allowed the peaceful atmosphere to overtake her. The sweet sounds of birds chirping, insects buzzing and a light breeze picking up her hair lulled her head to touch down on the soft grass beneath her.

"So relaxing…"

"Hinata-chan, are you tired?"

Her half-closed eyes widened again as she turned her head to the side, finding the sweet face of the girl she'd been hoping to see again for years. Rather than cry out in excitement at her finally-fulfilled wish of getting to see Homura-chan after six long years, Hinata simply smiled.

"Not tired, just… content."

The older girl sat down beside her, legs crossed and chin leaning on one of her palms as she tilted her head to look at Hinata. "It's been a while hasn't it? You've grown up a lot since I last saw you Hinata, won't be long until you're a woman."

Hinata shrugged, even as a light blush dusted across her cheeks. She pulled her kimono-sleeved arms up to go under and cushion her head, thus giving her a better view of her dear friend. "You've grown up a lot too, what happened to the cute blushing 8 year-old nerd who left me when I was 6?"

"She went through a harsh reality and came back a little wiser."

"Whoa, sounds pretty deep for what I thought was going to be light conversation."

Homura flicked her long hair back and sighed, expression cool but demure. Hinata couldn't help but stare at her, for gone were the red-framed glasses and two thick plaits that she remembered, to be replaced by a shiny mane of straight locks and her large, half-lidded violet eyes uncovered to the world. Her school-uniform had changed to from a dark blazer and red-plaid skirt to cream-coloured blazer, white blouse and dark pleated mini-skirt with dark thigh-high socks and shiny black shoes.

Right now Homura looked every bit the two years older than Hinata that she was and the Hyuuga girl didn't know how to feel about that. It was probably best to ignore it anyway.

The two girls sat side-by-side and talked about everything they'd been doing for the last six years. And it was like nothing had ever changed, especially when Hinata teased her and she reverted back to the cute blushing girl that she remembered as her true nature surfaced above the glamour.

"So Hinata-chan, do you still like that Uzumaki boy or have you turned to the Uchiha kid that you saved three months ago?"

"Well I… huh?!" Her face had never taken on such a shade of red before and Homura laughed in delight. Hinata was blushing in front of her! She'd never-before seen the occurrence with her own eyes and it was very amusing to the Akemi girl.

"I… ummm, don't like… Sasuke-san."

"So it's still Naruto-kuuun huh?" Hinata had covered her face in embarrassment but could still feel the smirk Homura was giving her. "Have you tried asking him on a date?"

"No. He likes Sakura-san and always asks her for dates, even though she rejects him because she loves Sasuke-san. I… am irrelevant."

"Irrelevant you say?" Homura debated on telling her about the way she'd seen Sasuke looking at the Hyuuga girl, but in the end decided not to. "Your feelings towards people are usually very apparent, in my opinion anyway. How could he not have picked up that you like him?"

"Well umm, he's… a little… dense."

Homura shook her head in pity at the poor girl. "There's a reason I never really bothered with boys. Oh well, we're still just kids and you've got plenty of time to just tell him."

"Yeah, I suppose…"

Homura stood up and dusted the back of her skirt of any stray pieces of grass and dirt. "You wanna go find a witch and kill her with me?"

Hinata sat up again, looking at the Akemi girl with a confused expression. "Homura-chan, this is a dream right?"

"Well… we're in your mindscape right now. I don't think I've ever explained all of this to you have I?"

She sat back down and settled in to tell her story. "Magical girls all share a connection that starts with Kyubey, our spirit-guide and the universal deity who chooses those girl with the purest hearts and souls to fight the witches who were born of dark deeds. Very, very rarely, something happens in a magical-girl transformation that gives them special powers."

Hinata was sitting up now, listening to the story with rapt attention. She'd always wondered how they'd met, Homura-chan had been a part of her for what felt like since birth and she'd never thought to question it.

"You know that I have the power to manipulate time right?"

"Yeah." Hinata nodded. "And you've recently discovered you can manipulate things with your staff?" Yet another nod. "There's no other way I can explain how we got those powers other than they were gifts, a mutation of our magic that gave us an advantage over other magical girls. The result of our mutations was a connection between the two of us that spanned across universes. It was how I found you, and how I found a very good friend of mine named Madoka who I occasionally visit on the edge of my universe. She gave me another gift that allowed me to visit you in your dreams."

"Madoka? Where is she now?"

Homura smiled. "She's all around us. We found out a terrible secret about the magical-girls so she made a wish that turned her into a deity. Thanks to her all the magical-girls and our universe was saved, but she isn't human anymore. She became a part of everything."

Hinata blinked once, twice. "Oh… okay."

"I've met you in some very different timelines to this current one. I can't tell you anything about the future, but let's just say… things weren't so pretty in the other timelines I knew you." Homura shivered, shaking her head to rid herself of the other harsh realities.

Hinata instinctively knew not to ask what happened in the other timelines, because obviously it didn't go well or else Homura-chan wouldn't be here now. Instead she shrugged off everything Homura-chan had explained for now, just thankful that she'd come back as the two girls hurried off to fight some witches.

Hinata hugged her friend from the side as they left her mindscape. "I'm so glad you came back Homura-chan."

"Glad to be back Hinata."

...

"Come on sensei! I wanna do another mission!"

Naruto tried his best to grab onto his sensei's flak jacket and tug at it to reiterate his statement, but came up with thin air as the jounin body-flickered to the other side of Sakura and Sasuke who now took up the space between Naruto and Kakashi.

"We've already done two today, relax Naruto." Kakashi rolled his eyes and scratched the back of his silver, gravity-defying spikes, wishing he didn't have to go to the hokage's office and report.

"I don't want to relax! At least we should get some training in!"

Sakura sighed alongside Kakashi and brought her fist up to punch her blonde teammate across the arm.

"OWW!"

"Shut up for a sec and stop complaining baka!"

"But… Sakura-chan…"

'So annoying…'

"I don't need to be here Kakashi-sensei." Sasuke said, glaring at his teammates and looking pointedly at Kakashi, who shrugged. "Suit yourself, we're having dinner together afterwards."

"Not hungry." He walked off in the opposite direction.

Sakura pouted, staring at the back of Sasuke who'd walked away from them. She wished Sasuke-kun would call her chan the way Naruto did. Naruto also followed the Uchiha's back with a glare. 'Hmph, teme. Probably going home to gloat to his mirror or something.'

The dark-haired Uchiha broke away from his team and turned the corner, fully planning to go home. He almost bumped into a girl on turning, but she'd swayed to the side and avoided any collision with him, keeping her head low so that her dark-blue bangs covered most of her face.

"Sorry, excuse me."

"Hn."

He thought nothing of it at first, just a passing occurrence in his life, completely forgettable.

But something about the incident stuck with him and he couldn't help thinking about her as he continued his path home. The soft lilt to the girl's voice… unique shade of dark-blue her hair was. He'd glanced down and saw her hands, pale and small, so familiar…

"Hyuuga!"

Sasuke turned around and sprinted back the way he'd come. Turning back around the corner, he only just managed to catch the tail-end of a hooded beige jacket and he ran forward to grab the girl's shoulder.

"You!" He spun her around and stared into the face of the girl he remembered in his dreams. Huge, moon-like white eyes with a hint of lavender stared back at him in shock. "Umm… Uchiha-s-san…"

"You've got some explaining to do." He pulled her into the empty side-alley of the street and pushed her against the wall, hands gripping each of her shoulders. "Uchiha-san, w-what are you d-doing…" Hinata kept her expression blank and unknowing, struggling to keep her eyes locked with his in a show of honesty. His shirt-sleeves rode up a little and her eyes travelled up the smooth skin of his left forearm.

Hinata took a sharp intake of breath. Etched across the pale skin of his lower shoulder was a small tattoo in black ink, that of a strange design of a sun. Her eyes widened as she caught where his gaze was set, at the spot just above her collar-bones. Her necklace had slipped out from underneath her jacket and the smaller version of her soul-gem was now on display. The gold casing was in the same shape of an intricate-looking sun that his tattoo was.

"That pendant you have, it was part of a sword that you gave to me that night I… we, defeated the witch."

"Hmm… I guess… you caught me."

Hinata stood up from her crouching position and crossed her arms over her chest, sighing as she walked off and waving him over to follow her. "Come. You have some questions that need answering don't you?"

...

Sometime later found the two kids sitting comfortably across from each-other on neighbouring boulders near a waterfall that trickled into a bubbling spring. It was Hinata's favourite spot deep in the forest that only she knew about, before anyways. It more than did as a private place where they could talk.

'She's not telling me everything.' Sasuke thought privately as he listened to the explanation Hinata was giving her. Magical girls? Spirit-guides? Travelling across universes? This girl had to be crazy. But then again, she'd already shown him some of the unbelievable things three months ago when they'd fought a witch that he'd apparently created. What mattered to Sasuke most was that this new potential source of power had just been created, for it was a power way beyond the scope of what they knew in their relatively tiny piece of the world. If given the opportunity, Sasuke would take advantage of the power, and use it to help him in his goal of catching up to his brother and being able to defeat him.

"That's all there is to it Sasuke-san. I mixed some of my chakra, and… magic, into you and it seems to have resulted in an unintended connection between us."

One of his eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. "How will this affect me?"

"Well… it shouldn't affect you at all." Hinata shrugged, "I really have no idea. For now, carry on with your life. And if you could… just ignore me the next time we see each other, like you've always done." She stood up again and jumped off into the treetops without another word, leaving Sasuke to think about everything he'd just been told.

...

"Hey Hinata-chan!"

Kyubey managed to catch up to her just before she reached her house. After glancing to the side once, Hinata looked ahead again. "Kyubey, haven't seen you in a while."

"You've really been clearing away the witches, business is slow."

They made it to the compound and headed inside, passing through the quiet hallways. Several branch-house members walked by and bowed slightly as she went, to which she returned the courtesy. It always felt very tense however, when the elders who didn't like her caught sight of her as she passed. Gozu glared at her, sitting inside the dojo whose doorway she tiptoed by as the elders commenced one of their many meetings with her father. Only when she reached her bedroom and closed the door did Hinata breathe again.

Kyubey jumped onto his favourite spot on top of her dresser and curled up in a furry little ball, watching her pack her bag. "It was a little surprising, but since the shinobi have been so busy lately, and another team dropped out suddenly, we were the only other team free for an overnight mission keeping an eye out for enemies in one of the watch-towers outside the walls of the village. It's a C-rank, can you believe it? Only three months into being a genin and we've already gotten our first C-rank mission!"

"Wow! So you're camping outside of the village?"

"Yes." Hinata carefully chose and put in things she thought she'd need, extra clothing and underwear, water-flask and several kunai that she hoped she wouldn't have to use. In the side-pocket of her medium-sized backpack there was a small blade that she would probably use for cooking and a first-aid kit, also a useful resource. Add several ration-bars and her sleeping-bag tied over the top of the pack and she was ready to go.

...

An hour later and she'd met up with her team as they headed outside of the village. Kurenai-sensei led the group while Kiba and Akamaru took the rear, with Hinata and Shino in the middle. They were only a metre apart so it was a very subtle diamond-formation, nevertheless it was effective for tracking and combat, where the most-skilled shinobi, Kurenai, was in front in case they needed to face an opponent head-on while the tracking and sensory-specialised dojutsu-using genin were spaced out around her and the second best fighter Kiba was ready to eliminate enemies coming from behind.

"Hinata, I'd like you to scan our immediate surroundings every 20 minutes with your byakugan. Shino, if you could have your kikaichu spread out long-range and Kiba, you know to keep your senses and instincts on guard, you're my first back-up in a combat situation."

"Hai sensei!" All three genin replied at once and immediately set themselves to their individual tasks. Kurenai grinned, earlier she'd sat in a bar with the other two jounin whose teams had passed, Asuma-kun and Kakashi-senpai, and they'd shared tales of training mishaps and general observations of the next generation of shinobi.

Things weren't looking too bad, with seven of the nine genin that passed being heirs to the biggest clans in Konoha, one of them being the last sane Uchiha, considered the prodigy of their generation. Among the geniuses were the Nara, Aburame, and Uchiha, while the powerhouses were the Inuzuka, Akimichi and apparently the Uzumaki-boy whose true strength was shown simply in his persistence and determination. There was the Haruno, a quiet, hard-working girl who was neither spectacular nor mediocre, the Yamanaka, another hard-working girl who showed great potential with her mind-control dojutsu and finally Hinata-chan, who never seemed to stick out in any aspect but completed the tasks set before her quietly and efficiently. Kurenai felt she was holding back from showing her true strength for reasons unknown, and constantly thought on ways she could get the shy Hyuuga to come out of her shell. Though she refused to show anyone up, preferring to encourage and help others, there was just something about Hinata Hyuuga. Maybe it was the way she did things like they were effortless, yet she never drew attention to the fact that she had no trouble with her jutsu control or use, her strength, speed and agility at levels well-above average. Each time Kurenai gave her a new skill to learn she quietly came back the next day and demonstrated her use of it, the jounin looked on in amazement while shaking her head in disbelief. Yet Hinata still held herself in a way that showed she didn't believe how amazing, or adorable for that matter, that she was. Kurenai vowed to change that one day, and make Hinata become the confident kunoichi she truly was.

So-far, the teams levelled out with eachother power-wise, with the prodigy Uchiha and second in class Haruno being in the same team as the dead-last Uzumaki, while the other genin varied above or below the expected average in terms of skills and intelligence. Where Kurenai had won out was with the teamwork and coordination of her genin.

Training was the easiest thing in the world considering she had three charges who didn't argue or fight with eachother. She'd never heard a single complaint or negative feeling towards them, even Kiba who came from a clan known to be rough-housers with rambunctious natures. Part of her troop was Shino, the kind of kid who swore by cold, hard logic and long-winded explanations and reasoning, and as an Aburame relied mainly on his kikaichu bugs during battle. That didn't mean he couldn't fight on his own, no, Shino was proficient in all aspects of being a shinobi. His astute knowledge in the medical-field deemed him trainable as the team's medic, though Kurenai didn't have the healing touch herself so it would be up to one of the medic-nins, maybe Kiba's sister Hana would take time off of her job as a veterinarian to teach the boy.

Then there was the quiet, gentle Hinata who worked hard and well both on her own and as part of a team. While the secretive nature of hers bugged Kurenai a lot, being the more assertive type herself, it would be useful in an espionage mission where they needed to be sneaky. She would be best-suited for missions involving information gathering, going undercover and gaining intelligence, not to say that she wouldn't hold her own in combat, but evasion wasn't a common skill and the more shinobi with qualities like hers the better.

To round off the team there was Kiba, a rather large boy for his age, but maybe it was the heavy fur-coat that smelt faintly of canine. All three of them wore heavy coats, making them larger than they truly were, but Shino was also very tall and held himself like an observant scarecrow, and Hinata still very obviously was a girl of small stature beneath the clothes that hid the shape of her body. Kiba however was almost a man, with powerful, developed muscles that did as much damage as they threatened, though he still held the childlike mind-set of a 12 year-old. He held a combination of strength and speed that even Kurenai found formidable. And with a little more training from Tsume on working out their clan's famous fist-over-fang technique that would heavily involve little Akamaru, the cute but vicious puppy who filled the last spot in their little group nicely.

Hinata's peaceful-nature a worked well in calming down the rowdy Inuzuka, and along with Shino's clear-headed thinking Kiba was always shown true light while he himself gave the two incentive to speak up and be more assertive, more outgoing.

No, she'd apparently gotten the easiest team to work with and felt blessed all the more, considering her initial nerves taking on the hefty duty of minding genin when she'd only gained her rank as jounin two years ago. What Team 8 needed to focus most on was strengthening themselves physically, developing their dojutsu and broadening their skill-set, all of which were things that would come with time, training and her help.

...

"Sensei, my kikaichu detect the presence of four people approaching from the treetops. I believe it's a team of shinobi from the village."

Kiba stuck his nose higher up in the air and breathed in deeply while Hinata activated her byakugan. "I smell ramen and… apples." Kiba knew who those particular scents belonged to, obviously the ramen was Uzumaki while the apple was Haruno's shampoo, both being scents he'd had to sit with in the academy for the last seven years. Uchiha had never had much of a scent, unless the hatred and darkness he always reeked of counted, and then there was the unfamiliar and almost invisible trace of their sensei that he couldn't analyse.

"It's Naruto-kun's team."

Hinata beat him to the conclusion, turning off her byakugan with a light blush staining her cheeks.

"I wonder why they're here…" Team 8 stopped at the top of the treetops and allowed Team 7 to catch up with them.

"Hey guys!" Naruto came to a halt (more like tumbled into a heap) in front of Kurenai-sensei, who crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Uzumaki-san, mind explaining why you're here?"

"Well umm… uhhh…"

Naruto gaped at the beautiful woman before him, standing tall and elegant with big, ruby-red eyes and long, dark, wavy hair that framed her porcelain face. Her outfit composed mostly of bandages, red and black fabric and a flak-jacket hugged her curvaceous figure nicely.

It wasn't really that he was attracted to her (she had to be like 23, gross!) but he'd never talked to a girl, or woman, before who hadn't immediately physically assaulted him after. He decided to shake his head and take a step back from the other team, tapping his foot as he looked away and waited for his team nervously.

"What a strange kid…" Kurenai shook her head as Team 7 managed to arrive at just the right moment to break the awkward air.

"Baka! You broke our formation!" Sakura rushed at Naruto and tried to punch him but he was too quick and jumped across the treetops, pulling the nearest body in front of him who just happened to be Hinata.

'She won't hit me with Hinata in the way!'

'He's touching me! He's…' Hinata felt herself going woozy, the only thing keeping her standing was the firm grip Naruto had on her shoulders as he peeked over her shoulder.

"Dobe, let go of her and get back over here with your team."

The voice of the Uchiha grabbed everyone's attention and stopped Sakura in her tracks. Even Kakashi looked surprised, dropping the orange book he had down and finally giving the increasingly frustrated Kurenai the information she wanted. Hinata snapped back into coherency and moved aside as the Uchiha and Uzumaki faced each other, the air tension rising between them. "You okay Hinata?"

Everyone's eyes widened in surprise. 'What the… do they know each other?' Naruto wondered, looking from the blushing Hyuuga to the somewhat miffed and embarrassed-looking Uchiha. Meanwhile the two males on Hinata's team had gathered around her protectively while Sakura rushed over to Sasuke's side. Inner-Sakura was raging at this new, possible rival for Sasuke's affection. She tried to stop the bubbling feelings of jealousy and betrayal towards Hinata-chan, who'd always been such a sweet, shy and kind girl and most importantly was utterly uninterested in the object of Sakura's affections unlike Ino-pig and every other girl from the academy.

"Of course I'm fine Uchiha, get over yourself."

Everyone there gasped in shock and awe. Hinata had let slip her cover and let out a barely audible squeak, before recomposing her face to its usual shy, reserved expression. "I meant… I'm okay, thank you for worrying Uchiha-san."

"Hinata, how… do you know Sasuke?" Kiba asked, his eyes darting suspiciously between the two. "Umm… well…"

"Isn't it obvious? Their clans are, or were, the two biggest and most powerful in the village. They must have met on several occasions before this and developed some form of a rapport right?" Shino shifted his shaded glasses, tilting his head towards the Hyuuga girl. Hinata nodded quickly, grateful for the explanation. She could feel the weight of Shino's calculating gaze as he continued to make his own conclusions about the situation. It was at this point that the jounin finally decided to defuse the situation. Kakashi cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Yo Kurenai, you're heading to the East watch-tower right?"

She nodded, frowning. "What of it?"

"We were sent to take on the mission and bring you back because it's a C-rank and your team doesn't have the necessary experience just yet."

"Oh really?" Kurenai's face had darkened to a point that warned Kakashi to tread on his words carefully, lest he be caught in a genjutsu featuring his own personal hell. "And you think your team does?" Kakashi gave his famous eye-smile and backed away behind Sakura.

"I don't think it's because the hokage doubts your team's capability! I've had my rank longer than you and have more experience with these kinds of missions."

'She won't hit me with Sakura in the way!'

"Maybe we can do the mission together, at least let Team 7 stay the night so I can make sure you know what you're doing as… as your senior!" Kakashi felt the air around him growing hazy and gulped. The ground was covered in hundreds of writhing snakes, all reminiscent of a particularly horrible memory of a buxom kunoichi he'd had a thing with a while back. "No, please not that…"

Kurenai shook her head, clicking her tongue lightly as she cracked her knuckles menacingly while eyeing the jounin she'd always had to call senpai before finally gaining the same rank as him. "Well I guess our teams will be spending a little time together then, won't that be fun?"

...


	5. Chapter 5

…

**Chapter 5: Sparring**

"So uh… the mission."

Kiba, Shino and Hinata hadn't spoken a word the whole time, instead keeping together in a quiet huddle as the animosity around them died down. "Do you think we should just carry on to the watch-tower?" Kiba asked.

"I believe in the best interests of the missions it would be wise. But this may go against Kurenai-sensei's authority…" Shino replied matter-of-factly. "What's your opinion on the matter Hinata?"

"Well…" The hyuuga girl's eyes darted back and forth between her two teammates and the rest of the people here. "They're waiting for us at the watch-tower to relieve them. Let's just… go." The two boys nodded and without another word the three of them disappeared, leaving two separate stand-offs occurring between Naruto and Sasuke, Kurenai and Kakashi, and a half-annoyed, half-confused Sakura with her hands on her hips.

…

"I can't believe I acted so unprofessionally in front of my genin!" Kurenai moaned, covering her hands with her face as she hurried to catch up with her charges. She'd left Team 7 behind travelling almost double the speed they were currently going.

"Sensei!" Hinata craned her neck back towards the way they'd just come from. The three genin stopped for the second time that day, waiting on their sensei to catch up. After a quick apology she took her spot at the head of the group and they resumed their travel, making it to the watch-tower a little bit behind their expected time. Kurenai did all the talking to the five chuunin whose job they were relieving, then when Team 7 arrived ten minutes later the chuunin set off back towards the village.

…

"Sooo… what do we do?"

Naruto was bored, looking around the room of the watch-tower they were currently in. It was barely a storage-closet in terms of space, and with the eight of them and one puppy altogether things were really starting to get warm and uncomfortable.

"We look out for trespassers." Kurenai said, leaning against the giant uncovered openings around the towers that could be used for keeping watch.

"This is kind of boring though, yo Naruto, wanna spar?" Kiba asked the blonde, who cheered. "Hell yeah Kiba, let's go!"

The two ran off, leaving four genin behind who looked at each other.

"Sasuke-kun… did you wanna train together?" Sakura asked, rubbing her arm shyly. Sasuke ignored her, watching Hinata talk to her own teammate across the room. They went over to Kurenai and mumbled something to her, which she seemed to agree with as the two then left.

"Where are those two going?"

"To get firewood." Kurenai replied to the Uchiha's enquiry. "Maybe you two can make yourselves useful and set up the tents." Kakashi added, pulling out his little orange book again and sighing in content. Sasuke and Sakura groaned but eventually set to the task suggested.

…

Kiba grinned, hands on his hips as he sniffed the air, detecting the faint whiff of ramen and sweat. 'Come on Uzumaki, where are you hiding?'

The two were facing off in a spar, or more like strategic battle, as Naruto seemed to favour hiding and it was up to Kiba to find the sneaky fox-like boy and make him fight.

His scent trailed all over the forest clearing they were currently in and Akamaru let out a yip before jumping into the forest in search of the blonde. "Naruto, stop hiding like a coward and just fight me already!" he yelled angrily, stomping his foot on the forest floor.

Still nothing. Growling, Kiba decided it was time to use one of the jutsu his mother had taught him, one of the Inuzuka clan's most famous techniques that enhanced his already keen senses to a point where nothing within his current range of 3 kilometres could hide from him. He performed the necessary hand-signs and focused chakra to his nose and ears. The world became more alive, the scents surrounding him stronger and the sounds so clear vibrations were almost visible as waves across the air. Looking around the clearing, he smirked in satisfaction at the outline of his target practically illuminated, half a kilometre away south-west from his current location.

"Gotcha!" Kiba dashed off in said direction, alerting Akamaru to the detected presence.

They ran across the ground area on all fours, so in-tune to each other Akamaru would stop at the exact same time as Kiba to sniff the air and bark a reply to Kiba's inquiries to detail out the location of their target further.

Little did they know, Naruto was waiting for them, a cleverly-hidden trap set under the muddy and leaf-covered ground

"Just a bit further Kiba..."

When the duo ran out into the clearing they immediately both fell through the earth, yelling out in surprise. "Ha!" Naruto jumped down from the tree, tongue sticking out and kunai twirling in his hand, "serves you right for calling me a coward! Idiot."

"Let me out of here Naruto!"

"Figure it out yourself!

It hadn't exactly been the spar Kiba had planned out. Back in the academy, physical and practical tasks had always been his strong-point. He was the second strongest and biggest in the class, with first being Chouji, but the Akimichi had always been too gentle to show his true physical strength, unless of course someone commented on his weight. Kiba established his dominance as the best fighter in the school,right on par with the Uchiha. Meanwhile, Naruto had to scrape by with bare strength and skill, his small stature, lack of clan-teachings and constant belittling by his peers being major setbacks to his advancement in the academy.

Naruto had always been a loser, so to see him with the upper hand, the Inuzuka was a little in awe at how much the blonde had improved once his education went outside of the classroom and standard training grounds. Climbing out of the hole with Akamaru tucked into his hood, Kiba begrudgingly admitted to himself that the trap had been a good idea. If Naruto was his enemy, Kiba would be dead or incapacitated now.

"Okay, time for the real fighting now."

Naruto turned towards him, stretching his arms over his head in a mock-show of boredom. "I guess so." Kiba charged towards him and pulled his fist back, grabbing the Uzumaki's collar and pulling him forward to add force to the punch driving into his stomach.

With a puff of smoke the clone disappeared. Fifteen more jumped out from the bushes, all cheering as they charged at the Inuzuka andhis ninkai. "You'll have to do better than that Kiba! I learned a few new tricks since the last time we fought..."

…

"Shino, do you think they'll be okay?" Hinata asked, peeking out from behind a tree and watching her other team-mate fighting Naruto-kun. The two had put on an impressive display of skill, each learnt from their respective sensei over the last three months. Naruto had finally stopped playing around and took on the Inuzuka himself rather than sending clones, raising his fists above his head to block the heavy blows Kiba was sending.

"Kiba will probably overexert himself in an effort to show off while sparring, especially considering the competitiveness that both he and Uzumaki-san posess." Shino turned away from them and continued picking up stray branches.

"I hope you're wrong Shino-kun, and not just because if Kiba hurts himself we'll be hearing about it for the next two weeks at least..." Hinata turned away from them as well and resumed her task.

"Hinata?"

The two gennin looked up and found Sasuke had joined them, leaning against the tree in an attempt to look cool (in Hinata's opinion). "What is it Sasuke?" she asked.

"Train with me."

Hinata and Shino looked at each other. Shino found himself perplexed by the situation, adjusting his glasses as he observed Hinata turning to face the Uchiha with a frown. "That's what your team is for, go ask Sakura."

"No, I've sparred her enough and well… let's just say she's not much of a challenge." Sasuke had only fought the pink-haired girl in two matches and found her to be severely lacking. Her biggest problem was that she was just too much of a… fan girl, to want to hit him forcefully, and so he mercilessly beat her down.

"Shino-kun, maybe you'd be willing to spar with him?" Hinata suggested, turning back to her teammate.

"What's the matter? Can't fight your own battles? Heh, I expected as much from a girl..."

It took all of the willpower she had not to jyuken his ass into oblivion right then and there. Gritting her teeth, Hinata dropped the pile of firewood she'd been holding and faced him fully, cracking her knuckles with a scary expression very similar to what her sensei had been doing earlier. "You'll regret saying that..."

"Hn, about time you took me seriously." Sasuke braced himself for the flurry of wild punches the Hyuuga sent his way, all charged with glowing purple chakra that flared even more when she activated her byakugan. "I don't have time to waste on you. Let's make this quick."

Throughout the entire event Shino remained silent, almost unnoticeable to the pair as he spectated the match and remained on standby in case either of them got carried away. Sasuke found an opening in her flying fists and brought his leg down in a round-house kick, sweeping her off her feet in the literal sense.

"Take this Hyuuga!" he brought his fist down aiming for her face, instead hitting the ground below as she disappeared in a puff of smoke to be replaced by a smaller log. "It always helps to remember the basics, like substitution-jutsu."

Sasuke looked up and caught her hanging off the side of a tree, right before she launched several kunai his way. He dodged them easily enough and even caught one which he deflected back her way. "Fast, but not fast enough Hyuuga."

'Hmm... what to do.' Hinata thought for a second on doing something she'd never tried before, then with a shrug decided why not. Pulling several thin, sharp strips of metal known as senbon-needles from a long, thin pouch tied around her leg she threw them several fistfuls at a time in his general direction, hoping one would stick.

"What the hell is…" Sasuke didn't finish his sentence before the sharp bite of one of the needles pierced his skin. The needle stuck straight out before he ripped it off and he could feel the tiny fibres of the metal spike trying to grapple onto him. He looked up in disbelief at Hinata, but was disturbed to find her face going out of focus. Bringing his hands up to his face, he found everything blurring in and out in front of him.

"Poison-tipped senbon needles… Hinata, where did you get those?"

Shino rushed towards the Uchiha and managed to catch him just before he collapsed. He yanked the needle out of the boy and examined the tip. Traces of a very thin layer of shiny purplish substance coated the metal,"wolf's bane… and… chamomile?"

"It's a knock-out agent, nothing lethal." Hinata waved off her teammate's concern and begrudgingly hooked an unconscious arm over her shoulder, helping Shino carry the Uchiha back to the tower.

As they walked, juggling the dead-weight of Sasuke and the pile of deadwood between them, two other bodies came into view from the side. A tiny bark came from the bushes followed by the soft white furball with fuzzy brown ears that was Kiba's ninkai puppy.

"Akamaru no!" Hinata tried to avoid the puppy but he was too quick, jumping up to her chest in an attempt to tuck himself inside her jacket. Shino managed to let Sasuke fall gently while holding onto the wood-pile, but Hinata fell back and the wood once in her hands went flying high up in the air.

"Hinata!"

She heard Kiba's voice calling out to her, then saw the wood flying straight down in slow-motion, ready to impale her body. Shadows moved across her as if to act like shields. Hinata didn't have time to think and reacted instinctively, activating her byakugan and bringing forth the power of her soul-gem. It felt warmer than usual against her chest, the magic running directly from her gem to her eyes. She felt the force of the sticks trying to bear down on her, but it was for nought. They stayed in the air, unmoving.

"Hinata… Naruto…." Kiba didn't make it in time but Naruto, or rather his clones, did. They'd formed a geodesic dome around her by weaving their arms and legs together. But every one of them was looking up at the unmoving sticks with wide eyes, so they failed to see the blushing girl they'd covered. 'Naruto-kun tried… to save… me…' Her world was going black and she felt woozy for the second time that day. There was the sensation of tugging at her shoulders and under her arms and a wetness on her cheek, followed by the cool breeze being fanned on her face.

"Hinata, you okay?" Kiba's face came right into view, with the presumably real, non-clone Naruto behind him. Both looked shocked and worried at the scene they'd just witnessed and tried to step in on, while Akamaru was whining and pawing at her while licking her cheek. "Mmh… Kiba-kun…" Hinata sat up and put her hands to her head, releasing her byakugan. The sticks dropped down exactly when her dojutsu was released and tumbled down, stabbing some of the clones who puffed out of existence and caused the real Naruto to grimace at the twinges of pain that were sent back to him.

Kiba didn't know what to make of any of this. It was obvious that Hinata had done something to stop the sticks from falling, but what had she done? Did she have a power that she was hiding from everyone? Kiba made sure to remember to ask her about it at some point. He'd had suspicions about the Hyuuga girl's secrets for a while now, and shared them with Shino who had similar queries.

'But I don't think it's something we should worry too much about Kiba' Shino had told him a month ago, when they'd been training alone after Hinata had left somewhere to train on her own, leaving the two boys to spar.

'Why do you say that?' Kiba enquired, dodging the swipe the Aburame took at his shoulder and bringing his left fist around in an upper-hook that was immediately blocked before it gained momentum. 'Because Hinata wouldn't keep anything from us if it was important for us to know.' Kiba had frozen for a moment to process that information, resulting in a kick to the face that lost him the informal match.

He truly wanted to believe in Hinata, as much as Shino apparently did. But there was a side to him that refused to just let her slip by alone, keeping things to herself that would probably get her in trouble. It wasn't something she could really help, as he'd never been good at subtle enquiries, and Hinata never showed signs of distress.

Either all of his suspicions were unfounded, or she had a handle on her own affairs. There was also the possibility that Hinata was in trouble but was simply very, very good at hiding it, but Kiba didn't want to think about that. It never occurred to him that she might have been in trouble without actually realising it, as Kyubey licked his paw and stretched luxuriously, lying on a bed of stars and observing his magical girl from the shinobi world with a deviously non-forfeiting expression of bemusement.

"I'm fine thanks. Shino, you okay?"

Both boys craned their necks and immediately jumped up guiltily, running over to the Aburame who seemed to have a dark aura surrounding him. "Oh… thanks for noticing me Hinata, nice to know someone cares…"

"I'm sorry Shino, you weren't in any immediate danger and... well…"Kiba sighed as his teammate brushed past him coldly, his shades glinting at the Inuzuka scarily. He also passed Naruto who was given the same treatment, maybe on a lesser scale considering he wasn't part of Team 8. The Uzumaki prodded at his own teammate who was still completely unconscious, "what happened to the teme?"

"He got knocked out while sparring Hinata" Shino replied. Naruto gasped, running to Hinata and grabbing her shoulders. "You knocked out Sasuke? WOW! You must be really strong!"

"A-ano… I, umm… well… I mean…" There it was, the familiar two fingers prodding together in nervousness as a blush slowly crept up her face. Hinata willed herself not to almost pass out for the third time that day and turned away from the Uzumaki, breaking their hand-shoulder contact as she gathered the scattered wood back up in her arms and moved behind Shino. "Let's just go back to the watch-tower, we've been gone a while."

"Oh, okay then. But we'll have to train together another time Hinata! And you can show me what you did to knock Sasuke on his ass!" Naruto grinned at her and she gulped nervously, rushing ahead to catch up with Shino and Kiba who'd already left and leaving Naruto and his remaining clones to deal with carrying Sasuke. 'I wonder if that thing she did with the sticks was a technique used by the Hyuuga? Man I wish I came from an awesome clan like that… I wonder what it's like to be part of such a big family, although I've noticed besides Hinata all the Hyuuga's have sticks shoved really far up their asses…' Naruto's thoughts drifted lazily from the indigo-haired girl with eyes like the moon to his usual thoughts of ramen and training, as he trailed far behind Team 8 with Sasuke being dragged by the feet behind his other two clones.

…

Needless to say the mission was a success, although a boring one. Team 8 returned to the village a week later, while Team 7 had left 6 days earlier and had now been sent to Wave-country on their very own C-mission guarding a bridge-builder.

"I can't believe they got to travel so far outside the village!" Kiba fumed, jealous when he'd heard from Team 10 about the Uzumaki's joy at getting their own C-rank mission. Team 8 and Team 10 were eating together at a BBQ restaurant that Chouji's family owned. It was crowded and noisy with a warm, family atmosphere that Hinata loved. She hoped to come back often as people pushed their way past with trays of meat and side-dishes and friendly insults and jokes were thrown across the room.

"Well believe it, and we're going on our C-rank mission tomorrow morning, to Tea country!" Ino squealed in delight at the prospect of seeing the beautiful sites that Tea-country would have to offer. 'And the most important is the shopping! I know those villages have some of the best boutiques in the world and I can't wait!'

"We're only going to pick herbs and gather important plants needed for medical-supplies. I doubt it'll be a holiday Ino…" Shikamaru said, his chin resting on his arms as he leaned lazily with both elbows on the table. "Shikamaru's right, we won't be wasting time when we get there." Asuma-sensei added, having just got back from the bathroom and resuming his seat across from Kurenai-sensei who was eating her food quietly. Chouji was busily turning the grilling meat to talk and Shino was helping him by stoking the flames with charcoal and preparing side-dishes and vegetables. "Oh man… you guys are no fun!" Ino whined, crossing her arms in a huff.

The two teams chatted and ate, and this, combined with the dinners Team 7 would occasionally share with either of the two teams made up the firm rapport that the rookie-nine, plus their sensei's, held with eachother.

Hinata drew back her chair and bowed. "Ano… I need to head home now." She refused the offers to be escorted home from Kiba and Shino and bid her goodbyes before leaving the restaurant, a small grin on her face.

"Kyubey-san, let's go…"

"Alright!" The white cat-bunny creature peeked out from Hinata's shoulder that he'd been perched on through the whole dinner. "This one's small, but apparently born of a girl's heartache. I think you'll know who she is…"

As they walked their surroundings grew more and more faint, to be replaced by obscured images and a pinkish mist swirled with red and green. Kyubey was transporting them from the shinobi world through to a witch's barrier.

Hinata picked up the faint scent of cherry-blossoms and… apples.

'A witch born from a girl's heartache. Do you feel for Sasuke that deeply Haruno-san?'

Cherry-blossoms swirled all around them, creating a tunnel in the fierce but controlled wind that they continued to walk through calmly. Hinata brought out her necklace and unhooked the gem, holding the violet stone to her heart and allowing her magic to flow through her.

'Maybe I'll learn more about how to control that special power I have.' Her heavy coat disappeared in a cloud of shimmering dust and the long, lavender, silken sleeves of her shimmering kimono jacket. Over the years her cutesy outfit had changed to something more comfortable for battle and a lot less glittery. Beneath the kimono she wore a simple silvery, fitted bodice top with a ruffled neck-collar. It was actually a body suit, with silver leggings that reached just past her knee, the entire suit hugged her body close but she wore the kimono jacket tied in such a way that her modesty was kept. It was cute and very becoming of the preteen girl, not that it really ever mattered considering no-one ever saw her in her magical-girl form.

Up ahead the source of the cherry blossoms become apparent as a large cherry-blossom tree under a vividly painted night sky came into view. "It's very beautiful, is this her mindscape?" Hinata asked, looking around in wonder at the grassy field sloping up to the tree. "A form of it." Kyubey replied, "There she is!"

Hanging from the branches was Calese, a monkey, or monkey-like creature. It had the same elongated limbs and small torso as a monkey, but its fur was the colour of gold silk and it didn't have eyes. "That's an unusual witch…"

She reached the base of the tree and pulled her arrows out, drawing back the bow-string calmly. "How hard should it be to kill her?"

"Well… let's just say you shouldn't underestimate a girl's heart."

"Believe me, I know that more than anyone." Hinata released the arrows and watched them soar through the branches towards its target. Calese disappeared in a flurry of cherry-blossom petals and reappeared even higher up the tree, letting out something between a screech and a peal of girlish giggles.

"Lookie what we have, a little pixie!" Calese the witch-monkey's voice was extremely nasally. She'd obviously sensed her somehow for she circled high above the branch she stood atop, its tail twisting ceaselessly. "You've come to slay me?"

"Mhmm." Hinata grinned at the monkey before bringing her staff out and activating her byakugan. "Maybe we can play a little first?" the witch-monkey suggested, swinging down low so that it perched right across from her. "I've never been very good at games Calese-san."

"Well, fine then. Have it your way…"

The monkey disappeared again and reappeared a long distance from her, giving her some time to attack. Hinata wasn't sure what Calese was doing until she had to duck quickly to dodge the oncoming, dark-blue energy-balls being thrown at her.

So the battle began. Hinata jumped from branch to branch as the witch threw its super-charged orbs at her, charring parts of the branches and setting other parts on fire. Every time she managed to reach where he'd just been sitting he would disappear. 'This witch is very evasive, maybe if I stand still and focus on my mind-manipulation technique…'

One of the orbs got too close before she could dodge and the heat-wave forced her off the tree. Flying back through the air she was reminded of the incident that occurred last week when the sticks had been about to fall on her. "I need to use my power!" Byakugan activated almost of its own accord and she forced all of her magic to her eyes and staff. 'I can move things without the staff, but it's a lot easier with it.' She found the monkey-like witch and willed it to come towards her.

"What is…? AAAGH!" Calese felt herself being yanked forward off the branch and directly over the magical-girl. Hinata had her arrow aimed straight at the witch's heart. "I have you in my range Calese-san."

…

In another world, across rivers and mountains, in the land of waves where a mistly little village was located, team 7 was making their way towards said village with the drunken bridge-builder Tazuna in the middle of their formation. Their travel was interrupted when Sakura froze in her place.

"Sakura, something wrong?" Kakashi asked, looking back with his single, uncovered eye towards her and noticed how much distress she seemed to be in. "My chest… it hurts…"

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto ran over to her as she kneeled to the ground and helped her to lean comfortably against a tree-trunk. "Kakashi-sensei, what do we do?" Sasuke frowned and stood over her, looking down in confusion. "Her hand isn't held over her chest, it's over… her heart."

Sakura gasped, looking up at the Uchiha with wide eyes. The two locked gazes and it seemed to her that the world was fading away in the mist, leaving just the two of them. She wasn't sure what this pain was, but she had a feeling he knew more about it than she did. "We're almost at the village. Naruto, do you think your clones can carry her?"

"Sure thing!" Naruto summoned one of his clones who immediately kneeled down backwards and hooked his arms under each of Sakura's knees. She was hauled up onto the blonde clone's back and they were moving again, but the whole time Sakura kept her eyes firmly glued on Sasuke, who by now had turned back towards the direction they were heading.

'Hinata, what did you do?' He asked while looking up at the vivid night sky that looked almost painted behind the swirling mist.

…

**It's Theo here! So I've edited the previous chapters a lot and it might do some good to go back and re-read them, but only if you want to. I'm not going into much detail about any of the events that happened in the canon-story, because let me reiterate, this is Hinata-centric. There will probably be a "what happens during the wave-arc with Hinata" arc, a "chunin-exams" arc with my modifications and yeah the whole war thing will probably happen too, also modified. My other main idea for this story revolves around the rookie-nine (and other special characters like Gaara, Lee, Neji etc…), witches being created by their conflicted emotions and Hinata having to defeat them, thus helping everyone without them knowing. And maybe they find out about it in an arc peak. **

**Again, thank you subscribers and those few reviews that are like tiny soul-gems of hope and encouragement for me to keep going ^_^ Next chapter will probably be up within the week! Or not lol who knows? **


	6. Chapter 6

…

**Chapter 6: Shattered Mirror**

As he observed the scene playing below, Haku sighed. His two opponents had put up a good fight, but their inevitable end was near. The dark-haired boy was incapacitated while the blonde tried his best to fend off the flying shards of glass, using his seemingly endless supply of shadow-clones as human-shields.

It saddened him having to kill for a living, but it was what Zabuza was best at. As his apprentice and devoted follower, it was up to Haku to ensure the man continued to live the life he chose, no matter how dangerous it was.

To have to kill these boys, who were his age and so full of potential, disheartened him. Haku moved through the mirrors, curiously watching the blonde who was now slamming his body into the mirrors.

"Give up Naruto, you're over your head in this."

The blonde spun around in circles, his teeth elongated and eyes glowing red. There was something happening here that frightened Haku, something completely unexpected. The boy's entire body seemed to be glowing the same kind of red as his eyes, with concentrated peaks of energy near his lower back that fanned up and outwards.

"Almost like… a tail…"

Haku had felt confident in the battle up until this point. Naruto's power had increased ten-fold in the last 30 seconds and was still increasing exponentially. 'I need to finish him off now, before it's too late!'

"**Over my head? I'll prove you wrong." **What was that raspy, chilling tenor that mixed with the normal voice he'd been hearing earlier? The boy was gone, replaced with the physical embodiment of what Haku could only describe as a demon. All around him the sound of glass breaking reverberated, the sound of his glass. Naruto was breaking through his special jutsu with just his aura.

He tried to direct the breaking glass towards the demon-looking boy, only to have it shot towards him faster than bullets, cracking the mirrors further. He felt his cheeks and arm being sliced open and blood poured out from the cuts.

"**Come out and face me!" **

Haku gasped as a hand grabbed him out from the glass barriers and he was thrown inside the trap he'd set for the two boys, on his knees kneeling in front of the terrifying demon. He shivered, feeling Naruto's red chakra in the air much stronger now than when he'd felt it from the mirrors. The Uzumaki towered over him as he tilted his head upwards, holding his hand to his cheek and hissing.

"**You've hurt Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei. And you work for a monster." **He threw Haku against the mirror and it completely shattered, throwing him outside of the barrier and right into the line of fire of Zabuza's battle against the silver-haired hidden-leaf jounin.

"HAKU, MOVE!"

Zabuza felt himself nearing the end. His ribs were cracked and he felt one of them sticking through his lungs, his sword-arm was broken and hanging limp at his side leaving his less-inclined arm to swing the sword wildly. The copy-ninja, Kakashi Hatake, had the upper hand now that the mist had cleared and he felt that finally, finally his meaningless life would be taken by a worthy adversary.

But when the boy that had been his shadow for the last five years tumbled to a stop in front of him, he didn't know what it was, but an unprecedented rage stirred within. He realised with shock that he feared for this boy's life, and with the copy-ninja and demon-boy coming straight for the both of them he reacted instinctively, jumping over the body of his apprentice and spreading his arms wide.

'Stupid boy, should've listened…' was the last thought he had before he felt the kunai pierce through his abdomen.

…

The mist thickened around him, swirling, changing. Lifting his hand it came in and out of view, he felt completely isolated when moments before his very reason for existing had just been killed right before his eyes. 'My injuries are gone… where am I?' He stood up and looked around, trying his best to focus on something, anything, but with little success. "Hello?"

The mist grew cold as snowflakes began to fall and the grey turned to white. "I don't like this… its cold…" He squinted slightly to see through the snowflakes as a silhouette appeared in the distance. Stumbling his way blindly towards the sign of life, Haku pondered on how he'd gotten here and if the person he was approaching was the reason for this strange occurrence.

"Hi there. Are you lost?"

Her voice carried across the mist and reached his ears before her face came into view. Haku smiled, soothed by the soft tone that reminded him of his mother, but his smile dropped into a gaping expression when she came into view finally. She looked like an angel, her silken lavender kimono billowing around her, long, indigo hair swaying in the breeze and huge, moon-like eyes focused on him and him alone. Just her gaze was making him feel like the only person in the world who mattered, like he was loved.

"I…. I am. Where are we?"

"Hm, good question. Walk with me?"

Haku fell into step beside the girl, still in awe over her appearance. She was silent at first, soft smile and demure expression on her face, looking straight ahead as if she knew where they were going. He noticed the strange weapons she adorned, a sheath of silver arrows strapped across her back, and another strap holding an intricately carved wooden staff that criss-crossed with the arrows. A bowstring ran up the entire length of her left forearm and beneath the kimono, where she wore all-black underclothes, there were small leather sheath-pouches banded above the bandages on her thighs designed for senbon needles, which he was familiar with because they were his specialty weapon, and kunai. 'So she's had shinobi training? Interesting.'

"Where are we going?"

"… I don't know, this is your mindscape." The girl replied, shrugging as they continued to walk. "My name is Hinata by the way, I'm here to help you face your inner-demons."

"Ummm… Okay. I'm Haku."

Her smile widened and she bowed his way, which he returned, before turning to face forward again. "We're almost there Haku-san, and all your questions will be answered."

"Are you an angel Hinata-sama? Just moments before this I was ready to face my death, but now…"

"I can't answer that question Haku-san, I barely know you."

Haku frowned. "These… 'demons', I'm supposed to face, do you mean I'm going to face my childhood?"

Hinata nodded, "this is your home right?" They'd made their way to a log-cabin that stood in the middle of the woods. The cabin was fenced all around with several farm paddocks behind it. "It… it is…" Haku ran ahead of the girl into his home, looking around at the familiar setting from his early childhood. 'This is amazing! I wonder if… Okaa-san…'

"Okaa-san!" He shouted, running from the tiny rooms looking for his mother. The house was eerily quiet, even more so than the last day he was here. He pulled down the door to the attic, which had also been his bedroom. Running up the steps too fast he stumbled forward and fell on his knees, almost hitting the giant ice mirror covering one whole wall.

"This wasn't here before…"

"Haku-san!" Hinata's voice called out from the hallway as she made her way carefully through the house, a fresh arrow cocked and ready to fire on her arm. She came up the stair case and peeked into the attic. "Haku-san?" The long-haired boy was frozen on the spot, looking at his reflection in a giant wall-length mirror that glowed an ethereal blue. Keeping her distance, Hinata circled the area where he stood, studying the mirror carefully.

A ghostly image of a female came in and out of focus in the mirror, one that looked like the spitting image of Haku were he to grow older and keep his delicate features. The woman seemed to be talking to him as tears streamed down both of their faces, but Haku hadn't said a word yet. 'His mother is the witch? How can I defeat her when he's around? He'll try to defend her… '

The walls were a dull grey, almost the exact shade of her clan's characteristic pupil-less eye-colour that she detested. The temperature in the room dropped to a point where she could see her breath now as a harsh fog that clouded the air. There was nothing else to do but approach Haku, whose frozen tears fell off his face and floated to the floor as tiny ice crystals, and place a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Okaa-san told me she loves me, and that she was sorry about what happened." Haku said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his yukata. "I want to be with her after this, when I wake up from this dream I'll end my life and join her in the next."

"But what about your master?"

Haku turned towards her in confusion. "Zabuza-sama? He's in the next world as well, they're both waiting for me." Hinata shook her head kindly, brushing her fingers across his face to rid it of the still-forming crystal tears. "Zabuza isn't dead Haku, Kakashi kept him alive. You're dreaming right now, but when you wake up, there are some things that you're going to have to do. For one, you'll need to convince your master to stop working for Gato and take back the hidden-mist village from him. In return for saving them, Danzo, the village leader, will offer you refuge and you and Zabuza can live respectable lives as shinobi of the hidden-mist."

From within the mirror, out of the corner of her eye, Hinata caught the smile from Haku's mother's face drop. The softened features hardened, gentle smile twisted into something cruel and vindictive and large brown doe-eyes became slanted and icy-blue. 'Looks like the witch is showing her true form…'

"It's an impossible-sounding dream, but still nice to hear." Haku replied, turning away from Hinata and looking back at the mirror. His heart fell when he saw that his mother's image was no longer there. "Where did Okaa-san go-"

"HAKU-SAN!"

Hinata pulled him towards her before the distorted image of his mother could attack him as she leaped down from the ceiling. Glass was shattering all around them once again and Haku felt himself being pushed from behind as Hinata forced him back down the staircase. "It's the witch! I need to get you to safety before I can attack her!"

"Witch? What are you talking about?"

Behind them the haunting cry and screams of a woman in anguish carried them across the house as they made their way towards the exit. The two were running side-by-side and Haku turned to look back once. He gasped at what he saw, because the woman chasing them looked eerily like his mother's image from the mirror. "Okaa-san!"

"Don't stop!" Hinata yanked his collar forward to continue running as they got out of the doorway. "That's not really your mother Haku, she's just pretending to be so you'll let your guard down!"

"But she… she told me…"

"HAKU MY SON, COME BACK!" The woman shrieked from behind them, reaching out her long bony, scaled arms where huge talons had now grown. She was given an arrow instead, as Hinata let loose what she'd had aimed and ready. The Hyuuga girl then released the explosive mechanism with the button located under her arm strap and held onto Haku as the explosion threw them forward and down to the ground. "We can't stop now Haku, keep running!" Hinata was on her feet a second after they fell and she tugged him back up hurriedly as they continued running for their lives with the anguished screams of the burning woman behind her.

'That isn't the last I'm going to see of her…' Hinata thought wearily, slowing to a stride as the mist surrounded them once again. She glanced at Haku every so often, who still looked terrified at what had just transpired. They were walking silently together, battered and bruised from the earlier battle, and though she wasn't feeling her best right then, Hinata knew it was nothing compared to how utterly defeated Haku must have felt, having had to face his traumatic childhood right after a tiring, and losing, battle in the real world. He held the bandages tighter to his cheeks, trying to numb the pain of his inflamed cuts that were covered by a clumsily-done dressing from Hinata, as blood seeped down his face and mixed with his tears.

"Okaa-san, she said… she said that she loved me…"

"Of course your okaa-san loves you Haku…" Hinata told him, worry etched across her face as she assessed his declining health, both physical and mental.

He stopped again, shoulders drooping as he kneeled to the ground. "I don't want to do this, I want to see okaa-san again, and Zabuza-sama. I want to stop fighting and just be in peace!"

Hinata turned back to him, kneeling down and placing a hand on his shoulder. She sympathised with him, truly, after hearing the boy's story through some extensive research she'd had to do by travelling to his old village in secrecy and sifting through the remains of his house in the real-world. He'd had everything precious taken from him the day his father found out that he and his mother possessed a forbidden dojutsu, their elemental-affinity towards frozen water.

In a backwards village with heinous ideas on dojutsu-users, Haku's mother had been deemed a freak and she and her child were set to be killed by the village. His mother sacrificed everything for him, killing his father and most of the village in the process but weakening herself to the point of her own death and leaving Haku to fend for himself as he ran from the village that had been the only home he'd known. By pure luck he'd been found by Zabuza, who offered him refuge in return for extensive use of his dojutsu to help the assassin-for-hire. In many ways though it was as much a blessing as a curse, for his innocent soul had been tainted by the blood of many people, people that he'd had to kill for his master.

Haku was no saint, but neither was he a demon, and Hinata knew in her heart that he had a lot of good intent inside, as did the broken-soul that was Momochi Zabuza. They would both be necessary for the future of the hidden-mist villagers, whose livelihoods depended on the bridge being built and were vulnerable to enemy villages without their own shinobi.

"You know, my mother passed away when I was very young too." Hinata said, looking off into the distance with a soft smile, urging Haku to look up at the angel with his big, teary eyes. "I've been told that I look a lot like her and that makes me happy. If that was what your mother looked like, then you're the spitting image of her."

His pitiful, yet hopeful, expression encouraged her to continue. "A part of her is still alive in me, and that's why I think it's so important to continue living, and growing." Hinata hugged the boy. "And the same goes for you too, you need to live and carry on her legacy!"

"It's just… so hard, and I'm so tired…" Haku moaned, rubbing his eyes as he lay back on the cool but damp earth below. Snow and fog were swirling around him like a cool yet comforting blanket, the chill was numbing his cuts just enough that they weren't irritating him and he closed his eyes. "Hinata-sama, I want to wake up now. But will I see you again?"

"Of course Haku-san, we'll meet in real life and have tea and cake together." Hinata gave him her most genuine smile and stroked his cheek. "Now go back to the real world and do what's right, I'm counting on you, just like your okaa-san…"

"I guess… this is goodbye then, Hinata-sama…"

'Just like I'm going to do for you, I'll make okaa-san proud of me…'

The boy faded into non-existence and Hinata stood up again, feeling her strength return at the triumphant pep-talk she'd just given to Haku. She had a feeling things were looking up now.

Turning towards the howling screech that was the witch's cries of anguish as she felt her "son's" presence disappear from her barrier, Hinata smirked as she cracked her knuckles and pulled out her staff. "Now where were we witch?"

…

The sky had finally cleared to a point where Haku could see the blue. Raising his hand above his head he flexed his fingers, finding it no longer went in and out of focus. He smiled, bringing the hand back down to aid in pushing himself off the ground as he tried to sit up and look around.

"Zabuza-sama?" He called, looking around the forest clearing where he'd passed out. It seems he'd been left behind with the remnants of their battle against the hidden-leaf shinobi, torn chunks of trees, the ground and patches of dried blood surrounded him. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that something was very wrong, so he stretched quickly and ran off in the direction of the village.

It was there that he met the scene of yet another battle, only this one seemed to have resulted in a massacre. Fallen bodies surrounded the half-finished bridge which he climbed to get a better view of the dramatic scene commencing below.

"ZABUZA-SAMA!" He cried, trying to catch the attention of his master who was busy taking down Gato's men like dominoes. A quick survey of the fighting told him that Zabuza had changed his allegiance from the gang-leader to the hidden-leaf shinobi, as he worked alongside the silver-haired man and they took out enemies together. The three genin were fighting as a team; Haku was surprised at how much their dynamic seemed to change as they weaved between and each other and seemed to guard their team-mates backs, slowly but steadily making their way through crowds of the gang members with precision and ease.

Zabuza looked up to the top of his bridge and spotted his young apprentice. Smirking, he made a hand-motion that told Haku to cover him from high up and Haku nodded, pulling out his senbon and preparing to shoot them towards the enemy.

In a mere half an hour the odds of them winning looked to be more than certain, as the last of Gato's men fell to the ground in exhaustion and Kakashi immediately broke their necks or slit their throats with kunai. "Damn it Gato, you've forced us to waste so many lives…"

"Give up now, or die." Zabuza lifted his sword and directed it towards the remaining thirteen men, the only ones of the forty-five that hadn't been killed. One-by-one they stepped forward and fell to their knees on the ground. "We give up! We give up!" One of them cried, bowing his head as a sign of defeat. "We never wanted to be on Gato's side anyway! They forced me to join the gang, I'm part of the village! I have a wife and daughter to feed and he paid me well!"

Kakashi nodded, looking at the other men who were all shivering under his heavy killing-intent. "And you men were in similar situations to him?" They all murmured replies in agreement, nodding their head as well. Another of them stood and kneeled at Zabuza's feet. "Are you going to stay in the village? Please teach us the way of the shinobi so that we may better protect the village and prevent something like this from ever happening again!"

"SENSEI!" Naruto ran over to where Kakashi stood, grinning widely and dragging both of his exhausted teammates by the wrists. "Baka, stop!" Sakura said, too tired to really yell at him and almost completely giving up on trying to retaliate. She fell to the ground and hugged her knees, looking around in horror at the number of dead bodies. "We should start digging graves for them…" Sasuke said aloud, crouching down next to Sakura. He had to admit that after the battle, and with his head still reeling from the knockout he'd received earlier when he was trapped in Haku's ice-mirror dome, he needed to stop soon and rest as well. "You were great out there today Sakura…"

"Really? Thanks a lot Sasuke-kun." Sakura chirped, feeling her spirits lift despite the morose atmosphere. "You and Naruto-kun have really improved in battle after all that chakra-control training."

Naruto sat down beside his team-mates, his smile waning as he took in the number of people they'd had to put down. "Damn Gato, making all these men terrorise their own village. We could have saved these guys, they didn't have to die…" Though he held so much anger towards the man, seeing his corpse on the ground mere metres away from them… he felt the anger dissipating, only to be replaced by sadness.

"There's hope at least" Sakura stated, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Hey… you three…"

They turned around and faced the small voice that called out to him, finding the hunter-nin who'd fought Sasuke and Naruto earlier. His arms were raised and he kept his distance to show that he meant no harm. "What do you want?" Sakura demanded, immediately jumping up and raising her fists in defence of her teammates. "Please, I'm not here to fight!"

"Then answer her, what do you want?" Sasuke asked coolly, still a little irked from earlier when the long-haired boy had knocked him out. "To… to apologize! I want to make peace between us now, since my master has decided to side with and protect this village." Haku bowed low and kneeled to the ground. "Please forgive me Sasuke, for trying to kill you, and Naruto, I'm sorry I hurt your precious people." He kept his head down and eyes closed, flinching when he felt a hand at his shoulder. Reopening his eyes, he met the warm blue irises of the blonde genin who smiled at him. "Everyone deserves a second chance right Haku? You're forgiven. That being said, we'll have to spar together before we leave so I can kick your ass in return for that beating you gave us earlier!"

"Okay Naruto, it's a date." Haku joked, turning away and returning back to his master. Naruto tripped over and face-planted the ground after that reply, with Sakura and Sasuke chuckling and shaking their heads in the background.

…

Standing over the body of the dead witch, Hinata clutched the grief-seed with a grin of satisfaction. "Hey Hinata!" Kyubey greeted as he flew down from the mysterious fog, seemingly coming from nowhere. "I see you defeated the witch yet again, ready to leave the witch's barrier?"

"Let me just seal this place first, I don't want Haku-san to ever have to return to this part of his mindscape again." Hinata held her staff with both hands and raised it high, using the growing power of her byakugan to will the fog to disappear. A wind that started off as a small breeze and grew in clout pushed the fog away and revealed the snow-covered forest. She then directed one of her silver arrows to the sky and it shot like a beam of light upwards, which hit the edge of Haku's mindscape and exploded. The debris that rained down was a clear blue that reminded her of a certain pair of eyes that she'd always loved.

"There, we can see the sky again. It'll melt the snow and bring back the springtime so Haku can be left at peace."

"You've done so many good deeds for people Hinata! Maybe when you go home you can buy some of those delicious cinnamon buns." Kyubey internalised the desire for the delicious pastries himself and perched on her shoulder, nuzzling into the girl's gentle touch as she scratched his ear.

"It's gotten a lot easier to fight the witches…" she confided later as they sat outside her favourite food-vendor eating the delicious and warm pastries. Kyubey munched on his own cinnamon bun in delight, nodding in agreement. "You started when you were six though, at a much younger age than magical girls normally start."

"Why did I start so early Kyubey?"

"It was Homura's idea, to help you defeat them in your dreams as a form of training so when the time really came you'd know what to do instinctively. She's just lucky those skills you learned in your mindscape transferred so well into partial-reality." In seconds Kyubey had devoured his cinnamon bun and was now licking the crumbs off his tiny paws and the wrapper that sat on the park bench where her he'd been eating it from. "That makes sense I guess. It never really fazed me when I saw my first witch so I must've been reacting on instinct like she thought I would."

"Aaand, with every witch you defeat you gain more power, and more importantly, experience!" Kyubey stretched out onto his back and sighed in content as Hinata finished the last of her own bun. "Hm, let's go home Kyubey, Ko-san is probably worried…" Hinata picked up the furry creature that was her spirit-guide and completely non-existent to the rest of the world, cradling him in her arms as she made the journey back to the Hyuuga compound.

…

**Looks like chapter updates are going to be once a week around this time everybody! There are a lot of characters starting to get involved in this and it's getting a little hard to keep the story consistent, so let me write this out again (mostly to remind myself). Homura and Hinata share a connection that spanned across universes because they were both given very special magical-girl powers that deviated from the norm. Homura was 14 when she became a magical girl, and went through a terrible tragedy concerning Madoka, who eventually became a deity to save her universe and protect every magical girl that was being harmed by the double-edged sword that was the wish that Kyubey granted them. Homura couldn't help Madoka because she was a goddess and too powerful, she chose to become non-existent and lived on the edge of her universe, occasionally visiting Homura who was the only person that knew of her at that point. **

**Homura remembered Hinata, and the connection they shared, so she asked Madoka to grant her the powers to help Hinata for when the time came for Hinata to be granted her magical-girl powers by Kyubey. Remember that Homura can travel through time, she learnt and went through these experiences at 14, remembered Hinata, went back to their 6 and 8 yr. old selves and started training Hinata in her dreams from that age right up until the present moment, where Hinata is 12 and Homura is 14. **

**Hinata still hasn't granted her wish, I have yet to think up what that wish will be. Kyubey isn't exactly evil, but he isn't exactly good. The wishes he grants can often result in more bad than good though.**

**Hinata is a very skilled magical-girl, not only because she grew up learning how to fight from her clan whereas the other magical-girls were simply high-school students, she comes from the shinobi world so chakra can mix with magic making for an interesting and yes, somewhat overpowered, combination. She is a better fighter than most and will definitely become even more powerful in the future, but that being said, she is as gentle with her friends and family as I remember her being in the manga and anime, and still remains shy and reserved (to her friends and family in the shinobi world at least).**

**So far she's been through a number of dream-scenarios (that were real witches in Homura's universe and dream-witches from Hinata's perspective), Sasuke's witch (and that one is probably unfinished business), Sakura's witch (unfinished business) and Haku's witch (destroyed). There were other witches that she defeated that were just random people, grief-seeds replenish her soul gem and she needs quite a few to keep her magical stores full. **

**Sometimes the witch's barriers are located inside a person's mindscape (as was Haku's case, it all happened inside his head where the witch that was born from his traumatic childhood memories manifested that area of his mindscape), and sometimes barriers are located externally (like Sasuke's witch that dragged him into another universe). Sakura's witch occurred in another universe, but she could feel when it was defeated, and although that big part of her heartache died there's still a little part of it left in her heart that could grow and come back as a problem yet again (and yes it probably will). It's all pretty much as random as the Puella Magi story, so… yeah.**

**Let me know if you have any ideas for what you wanna see in the story, I'm a really inexperienced writer though, so who knows where this is gonna go? Lol later guys, see you next week…. probably… ^_^ **


	7. Chapter 7

**...**

**Chapter 7: Night-time Rendezvous**

It started with a dream. Not one of his usual kinds with huge bowls of steaming ramen that he could jump into like a bath-tub and pink-haired goddesses, him standing atop the Hokage mountain with the entire village raining praise upon him as he adorned the Hokage's special robes and pointy hat, no. This dream was a complete deviation from the norm.

Naruto found himself sitting on a pure black ground whose matte seemed to absorb everything beneath it. The faint drip, dripping of a leak somewhere sent ripples across the ground, showed that the surface he was on should at least be damp. However, bringing his hand down he found it to be cool and glassy, neither moist nor soaking into his orange trousers.

'Where am I?' he asked himself as stood up. Looking around at the vast space he stood in, he sighed. There was nothing around to orientate himself with, no landmark, object, or even light to orientate himself with, yet somehow he could see. There was nothing but an empty black void that stretched for miles in all directions.

'There's nothing around… but that sound…'

It was very faint, almost imperceptible. His hearing internalised to the point where he could hear the steady thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat. He wouldn't have noticed, were it not for his hand clutching his heart and matching the sounds to the regular thump, but every fourth beat of his heart… there was an irregular.

Every fourth heartbeat was much deeper, much slower, and the sound of it entered his ears from outside rather than within. The sound of that fourth heartbeat was something else entirely, and as Naruto focused on it, the audibly low, raspy breaths of something large and slumbering materialized out of nowhere.

Naruto took a step forward, closing his eyes since it wouldn't do him any good if they were open anyways. He took another step, stretching his arms out blindly and taking step after step. He didn't know what was really pushing him to do this, but the heartbeat grew louder, as did the breathing.

The noises were so loud now that Naruto felt he was probably standing right in front of whatever this thing was. Opening his eyes, he met the sight of dull, iron cage-bars that spanned across a distance ten times and up three times his height. The cage was huge, yet at the very top centre of the bars he could see a little piece of parchment with an illegible scribble in black ink on it.

'That looks like a seal…' Naruto's eyes widened in realisation of where he must be. 'The kyuubi no kitsune…'

A huge pair of menacing, red eyes appeared behind the bars of the cage. He felt the chill start from the base of his spine and travel right up to the back of his neck. This… beast… it emitted an aura upon waking, one so potent that Naruto felt himself being forced to his knees, struggling to breathe under the weight of such heavy killing-intent.

Neither spoke a word, but in Naruto's case it wasn't a matter of choice as he brought his hands up to clutch his throat. He shuddered as the heavy atmosphere lifted slightly, giving him just enough air to reach his lungs and breathe again.

To think that the nine-tailed fox could kill him without even moving frightened Naruto to his very core. The kyuubi moving within his cage was as loud and disruptive as an earthquake, causing the ground beneath to tremble under its enormous weight. It kept its voice low and let forth a low growl that emitted exactly how threatening he could be.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

Naruto couldn't speak, frozen in fear of the monster who'd destroyed half of his village with a simple flick of one of its tails. He tried to open his mouth, but the only sign of speech was a small yelp that made the kyuubi grin. The sight of its front fangs, each one the length and twice the width of his forearms, brought fearful tears to his eyes.

'I can't speak… or move… what do I…'

"Don't be afraid Naruto-kun."

Kyuubi stopped grinning and curled his lip in disgust. He snarled as he looked around for the source of that voice, but was met with the usual blackness that had been his cage for the last 200 years of his life, excluding the brief period when he'd been freed by the masked man from his previous container.

"WHAT IS THIS?"

'That voice… it's so familiar… and comforting…'

Naruto looked around in wonder, hoping to catch sight of the ethereal creature that such a soft and girlish tone should belong to. There was nothing within sight, but the voice continued.

"He can't escape that cage without your permission Naruto-kun, so don't be afraid."

"I… I'm not afraid. Thank you…"

The voice hummed and it sounded like the most delightful music he'd ever heard. Naruto tried his best to focus on the cage before him, taking a deep breath before speaking with the exhale. "So, y-you're the Kyuubi no kitsune eh?" The menacing snarl from behind those cage-bars told him the fox-demon didn't like what he was hearing. "You dare speak to me with such a familiar tone…"

"Y-yeah, I DO!" The bars were bent as the demon forced his way forward barrelling into the cage.

"Keep your will strong Naruto-kun!" The dull metal of the bars glowed a pure white as if they'd been reinforced with a new steel. Howling, the kyuubi jumped back against the bars as if they'd burned him. "What is this chakra you use… WHEN I ESCAPE THIS PRISON I'LL TEAR YOUR LIMBS APART AND CRUSH YOUR BONES TO DUST!"

Those glowing red eyes grew larger and Naruto found himself frozen again, lost in the bloody irises. "I will ask you again boy. WHY. ARE. YOU. HERE?!"

"I don't know, I didn't… ask… for this…" HE kneeled to the ground before Kyuubi, clutching his head with his hands. "Release me, RELEASE ME NOW!"

Trembling with anger, the nine-tailed demon made the entirety of the space they were held in shake. After 200 long years, he was still furious about his unjust imprisonment within the jinchuriki-line, those Uzushiogakure brats deserved what they'd gotten when their village was brought to ruin by other, stronger villages.

While lesser demons could be sealed in something as simple as a vase, with the death of this boy, the last living Uzumaki, it would mean the death of the only remaining mortal with a direct lineage to a bloodline that could seal him, the most powerful demon in the universe. He'd readily admit that the Uzumaki clan had gained his respect, for their knowledge of the sealing-arts reached beyond what the gods would ever allow a shinobi to know at the peak of the small clan's existence.

Which was they'd needed to be destroyed, their documents burned alongside their corpses. The other mortals of some unknown village had seen to the Uzumaki clan's demise the day after his previous container was sent to the hidden-leaf.

"Stop it demon!" Naruto shouted, clenching his fists in anger and raising them towards the beast. "Even if I wanted to release you, I wouldn't know how!" Through the throbbing headache and stiff limbs he pulled through, standing up again with a triumphant glare at the tailed beasts. A warm glow was travelling through his body, soothing the pain that the kyuubi's gaze gave him

Inside the cage the nine-tailed fox stilled, seeing that the effect he had earlier on the boy was now dissipating. "Why... why did you attack the village?" Naruto asked, gasping a great big lungful of air while his passageway had once again been narrowly released. "Demons don't attack shinobi for no reason!"

"Is that so?" the fox drawlied, snarling again. "I won't answer that question."

"Because you don't know why right?"

The fox howled again and rammed the bars even harder than before, bending them to the point where his fangs just scratched at Naruto's neck and he threw himself back onto the ground with a thud.

"He's getting out of control, time to wake up Naruto-kun!"

The snapping of the kyuubi's jaws and an echoing roar was the last think he heard before he'd been sucked back into the inky black surface that fell down like an endless abyss. "HELP ME!" He yelled, flailing his arms and legs in an effort to slow down but with no luck.

"Don't worry Naruto-kun, just wake up."

"Huh? This is a dream?"

"Wake up! Naruto wake up!"

He hit the water in his dream with a splash and at the same time bolted upright from his bed, drenched in cold sweat. "It… was… a dream…" Gasping, eyes wide, heart beating erratically, Naruto jumped out of his small box-post bed and ran into the bathroom to splash his face with cold water.

He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, breathing heavily. Water dripped down reddened skin, past the birthmarks that looked like whiskers. He traced them out with his fingers, hissing at the heat that seemed to emanate from them and the way they'd seemed to lengthen and thicken. His canine teeth were just a little more prominent than they were before, and worst of all his usually blue eyes were ringed with a thin line of red. This wasn't 'he first time he'd caught himself looking like this, but it was definitely the strongest resemblance to the fox-demon he'd seen.

'Is this… me? Am I a… a… demon?' He wondered, stumbling back to his bed and resting his head on his hands with a heavy sigh. 'What a terrible dream, maybe I should tell Kakashi-sensei about this… but what if he tells the old-man Hokage? I don't wanna be exiled from the village, it's my home!'

He shook his head to rid it of the morose thoughts and stood up again, walking five feet across the room to turn on the kettle. Maybe some late-night instant ramen would make things better, too bad old-man Teuchi needed to sleep sometime and the stand wasn't open 24-hours.

Just as the kettle was about to squeal a light knock at the window alerted him to the presence of some unknown. He yelped and fell off the bed, into the heaped pile of dirty laundry that would probably be done sometime soon… or later. "Who's there!" he yelled, rummaging around for his kunai and finding it under his pillow. Getting up again and sticking close to the wall next to his window, Naruto watched a hand enter his bedroom followed by a hooded head. The white kabuki mask glowed under the bright moonlight, a tiny yellow-painted sunflower on the cheek of the mask being the only symbol distinguishing her from the other elite shinobi known as the anbu. "Anbu-chan?" Naruto asked incredulously, dropping the kunai in shock.

***flashback***

…

It was a dark and stormy night when she first appeared. He was seven years old, a struggling orphan who'd just been kicked out of the orphanage to live on his own with a meagre allowance. The village had been on an economic downslide lately so the welfare payments weren't a lot, but with a bit of budgeting a single person could live comfortably on the allowance he was given.

Too bad Naruto didn't know the meaning of the word "budgeting" back then. He'd been scammed of and had his money taken from bigger and smarter kids and adults alike, and with no rent paid and no food to eat he'd been left on the street for the night. He was a stupid kid at the time, unaware that there were people he could go to for help, but in a world where he'd always been shunned, isolated and left unnoticed, who knows if knowing about those things would have done him some good anyways.

Shivering in the cold, wet alleyway hugging his knees, Naruto closed his eyes, ready to pass out.

"There you are Naruto-kun!"

A soft voice called to him from the other side of the alley-way and he heard footsteps splashing through the puddles, making their way closer and closer towards him.

"Hm? Someone…" His droopy eyes lifted and he caught the silhouette of a small figure, standing over him with a looming shadow. He couldn't make out a face, but the person looked female. It was all he managed to register before his eyes closed again and he leaned back against the wall.

"Warm… and soft…" a pair of arms had wrapped themselves around him and he smiled, leaning into the other body as he then felt himself being hauled onto someone's back. It was a shaky piggy-back ride to get to the building that she wanted, but the anbu didn't mind.

…

"Hey kid!"

Opening his eyes, Naruto found himself in the presence of a pretty older girl wearing an apron and headscarf that covered most of her long brown hair. He was in a comfortable cot-bed wearing a stripy blue shirt several sizes too big for him, but what man would ever lend their shirt to him?

"Mmh, who are you lady?"

"Is that a way to speak to the person whose bed you're sleeping in?!"

It wasn't the first time he'd felt the sharp bonk of a girl hitting him, but with a soup-ladle? Yeah, that was new. Pulling the covers off of himself Naruto stood up and Ayame threw a bright orange parcel of clothing at the spot he'd just vacated. "I saw these clothes at the markets and thought they might fit you. You've been asleep for a whole day you know."

"R-really?" Naruto sweat-dropped as he looked out the window and saw it was evening, he'd passed out at night time so she must've been telling the truth, he'd slept a whole 24 hours!

"Come out front and get dinner when you're dressed, it's getting cold!"

Ayame slid the door shut behind her and gave Naruto some time to sort his thoughts out. While he dressed in the bright orange jumpsuit he frowned, wondering how exactly he'd gotten here. Once dressed he opened the door again and took the short passageway leading to a small kitchen with huge pots of steaming noodles and meaty broth, the aromas sent his stomach into disarray instantly. A large man had his back turned to him, busily stirring the pots and adding various ingredients to each of them.

"Ahem" Naruto cleared his throat and the man turned toward him with a big warm smile. "You're awake!"

"Yup. I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Thanks a lot for letting me sleep in your bed."

"Call me Teuchi! And you were in my daughter's bed actually. Now go out front m'boy, your meal's waiting!" He smiled at the old man and shuffled around him, entering the eating area where customers sat.

"Welcome to Ichiraku's! What can I get you?"

"Miso-ramen please."

Ayame tended to the customers at the front with a big smile. Seeing that the blonde had finally woken she ushered him over and pushed him to sit on a front-booth seat. A bowl of ramen and wooden chopsticks was pushed towards him and he eyed the food with wide eyes.

"There you go, eat up now!" Teuchi told him kindly. He didn't need to be told twice, breaking the chopsticks apart and grinning goofily, Naruto took his first mouthful of ramen and broth and lost himself to the most delicious food in the world.

That day began the first of the many staples that Naruto Uzumaki held to. It was the beginning of his ramen-obsession, the beginning of his orange-jumpsuit wearing, and it was the day he'd met the kind strangers from the tiny ramen-stand that he'd be forever indebted to for giving him the start of an endless string of free meals and a bed to sleep for the night.

"How'd you guys find me old man?" Naruto asked an hour later when his belly was completely full. Teuchi sweat-dropped at the huge stack of bowls that the boy had cleared. "An anbu brought you here and asked us to look after you."

"Anbu?" Naruto was puzzled. "They're the most elite shinobi of the village, you usually never see them, but if you do, they're the ones wearing all black clothing and white kabuki masks."

"Oh! I've seen them around the hokage. Those guys are shinobi?" Ayame nodded in reply. "She comes here to eat sometimes and we know her well, even though we haven't seen her face. Anbu-sama gave us this money to help looking after you, but I think you need it more ne?" She threw the frog wallet that he'd had in his old jacket-pocket and his arm dropped to the counter with the heavy weight of it. The frog-wallet was stuffed to the bulging seams with money. Naruto's eyes bulged. "That's a lot of money! Thanks Ayame-chan…"

"Actually, you're just a kid so give that to me and I'll handle your rent and food-shopping" She snatched the frog-wallet back and he sulked, earning another bop on the head with the ladle from the no-nonsense girl. "Damn hokage leaving a kid to fend for himself in this big, cruel world. I oughta give him a piece of my mind…" As Ayame went off on her rant the curtain entrance shifted and a shadow entered the room, looking around once before making her way towards Naruto and the stand-owners.

"Anbu-sama!" Ayame chirped grabbing the hooded figure by the shoulders and sitting her down next to Naruto. "HIYA! I'm Naruto Uzumaki!"

The anbu simply nodded, pulling out a notepad and pen. Writing in tiny, perfect, characters on a small corner of the page, she pushed the notepad over to him and he leaned over to read it.

'I know who you are Naruto-kun.'

"Oh, can you not speak?"

"Nope. Anbu-sama is actually an apprentice-anbu, she isn't allowed to reveal any part of her true identity in case enemies try to target her home." Ayame explained what the anbu-girl had already told her once, to which Naruto nodded with wide-eyed amazement.

…

"You're an anbu huh? So you must be a super powerful ninja!" Naruto remarked as they walked along the streets together. The anbu-girl wrote something on her notepad and Naruto leaned over to read it.

'Anbu apprentice. I'm not that powerful yet.'

"Still! Bet you could beat up all the big bullies around her any day!"

'Do they pick on you Naruto-kun?' she wrote, frowning beneath her mask.

"Not anymore, I'm tough enough to fight back! But there are some kids around here who get picked on for being quiet, I wish they'd learn to speak up for themselves…" his thoughts drifted briefly to a girl who was being picked on a week ago, one that he'd intervened in on the bullying of.

'What do you wanna be when you grow up Naruto-kun?'

He read that and scrunched his face up, crossing his arms deep in thought. "Well I wanna be someone… someone that everyone notices, that never gets left behind and is always looked at with smiles and praise!" He stretched his arms behind his head and grinned widely.

'You mean like the Hokage?'

"Hokage? Is that what he is?!" Naruto looked at the cloaked figure in shock.

'The hokage is the strongest person in the village and it's his job to protect and lead the people. He's the most important person in the village and everyone loves him.'

"ALRIGHT THEN, ONE DAY I'M GOING TO BE HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!" He grinned widely and did a happy dance, spinning around and punching the air. When he turned back towards the anbu girl he was surprised to find her chuckling, gloved hand held over her mask.

'When you become hokage, as an anbu it will be my job to protect you.' She wrote, grinning just as widely as him beneath the mask. "And when you're a full anbu and I'm hokage, you'll take your mask off and I'll see your face right?"

That threw her off a bit. Stunned, she faced him and shivered in nervousness. The thought of revealing her true face to him made her incredibly nervous. The mask made her feel less like the shy little girl she was to the outside world, and more like the person she was inside, confident and strong.

"… Right anbu-sama?" Naruto persisted, shaking her shoulder gently. The anbu-girl nodded, against her better judgement, and was swept up in a hug by the young boy.

So began the friendship of Naruto Uzumaki and the nameless anbu apprentice. It was only ever nightly visits, as anbu were never seen during the day. Most times they'd eat together and chat, but others they would train side-by-side, or she'd instruct him on the basics like throwing kunai and shuriken, and other useful skills such as tying rope-harnesses, camouflaging himself and the most useful skill to date transforming himself into other people so that he could get away from the guards during one of his many infamous pranks.

…

***end flashback***

The two young kids sat side-by-side on the rooftop of his building, empty cups of ramen behind them. The anbu took her time sipping the broth beneath the tiny opening between her mask and cloak, before she hummed in content and put the empty ramen cup down. Naruto's endless chatting lulled her into a warm, comfortable state that she wished wouldn't end. But then she sighed, there were things that needed to be done. Even as he spoke of that terrifying dream that she'd helped him get through, without his knowledge of course, the anbu-girl knew it was almost time to leave.

'I have to go Naruto-kun.'

"So soon? You got here half an hour ago!"

'Sorry, goodbye.'

Before she could slip into the shadows he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into another hug that made her weak in the knees. "You know, the girl from my dream, even though I'd never heard her voice before, she had this really familiar laugh. If I were to take a guess-"

The girl pushed away in shock and body-flickered out of there, leaving a chuckling Naruto alone. "Some other time then eh anbu-chan?"

…

Gasping in shock as she leaned back against the tree she'd managed to transport behind, Hinata took off her mask and clutched her erratically beating heart in frustration. She hated how nervous he made her, when all she wanted was the confidence to reveal herself to her crush and best friend her body reacted instinctively and either sent her into a dead faint or turned her into a tomato.

'What if he doesn't like what he sees? He might've been expecting someone else, probably Sakura-san… yeah, this is for the best…'

Wiping her sweaty brow and slipping the mask back on, Hinata activated her byakugan and regained her composure. Her sensei was expecting her any second now, and Anko Mitarashi was a woman no-one should ever keep waiting.

…

**So uuhhh… Hinata's an anbu-apprentice, sort of. I added some sentences that indicate her being anbu in chapter 2, like… 10 minutes after I finished writing this chapter... heh… Hinata's at her shiest around her family and Naruto-kun, she kinda don't give a shit about anyone else.**

**There will be a story on how she ended up with Anko (maybe a witch that she had to defeat for the snake-mistress? *ooooh*). Overpowering a character to like a trillion times what they really ought to be? Okay fine, you've caught me. I, Theo, am absolutely guilty of overpowering my characters to a ridiculous point. I'll just make up for it by going hella into the other character's skill-sets as well, in my defence I thought Naruto was at freaking god-level by the end of the canon-story, toad-summoner AND sage-mode AND Kyuubi AND rassengan AND ridiculously big chakra reserves? He's a hella powerful dude, and in my opinion needs a hella powerful lady. Soooo… I feel justified.**

**But yeah, so far Hinata's been trained by her clan (albeit reluctantly) to use her byakugan and jyuken, trained by Homura-chan to fight witches, trained by Kurenai-sensei to do base-shinobi missions and anbu-trained by Anko. And I know, I KNOW Anko isn't an anbu! But I'll explain everything with the power of my imagination *bull-shitting skills ACTIVATE***

**Anko is part of the interrogation-force with Ibiki, but she is an anbu-level shinobi and so was given a special title by the hokage, the title of anbu special-ops, hidden branch. She isn't ordinary, let's put it that way, and I'm going to give a backstory in maybe the next chapter (maybe a later one) on how her and Hinata met, what prompted Anko to want her as a (secret) apprentice and what exactly they do as master/apprentice anbu. **

**This early chapter was a result of a review I got that inspired me to get my ass into gear (thanks nanashiwindcaller!). Your constructive criticism, and I repeat CONSTRUCTIVE, criticism, is appreciated. I love suggestions on ways you think I can improve, whether it be what could be added to the story in terms of the other characters or simple spelling mistakes, I'm only one person and I need grammar and spelling errors pointed out to me please! Even though I've constantly been going back to check and recheck and edit the story, and recheck and edit and check it again. I miss things, I'm human… That being said I'm not taking any of the stuff I've already put in, out. I'll add more, I'll adjust and rearrange, but I won't take away. For example, it's been written that Hinata's all of these things and I won't take it away. But if someone's opinion is that she's too overpowered, and you consider it inhuman, she will still remain with all this training, but at a very weak level. So if you think it's too much that she's an anbu, I'll make it so that she fails at some anbu missions and there will be some parts in the story showing her having to constantly train to get her skills because normal humans would have to train to get those skills. Yeah, stuff like that…**

**It's bedtime now, night guys, enjoy the early chapter ^_^**


	8. Chapter 8

**...**

**Chapter 8: Snake mistress**

She arrived at their usual meeting-place just past midnight, taking her mask off and crouching down on top of one of the tree-branches high above the forest-clearing where their private training-ground was located. The moon shone down upon the landscape and she could clearly make out the outlines of buildings she'd been skimming across earlier, the faces of the Hokage mountain almost eye-level to her.

'How late is she going to be this time?'

Sighing, Hinata unfolded from her crouching position and sat comfortably with her legs dangling off the branch, deciding she had a while. Her sensei always arrived at least half an hour late, a habit the older woman seemed to have acquired from one of her colleagues, the jounin in charge of Naruto's squad, Kakashi Hatake.

'He's incredible! Seeing him fight Zabuza in Wave country, even though I was kind of occupied helping Haku-san… I have a long way to go before I'm anywhere near his level as a shinobi… and it's no wonder why sensei likes him so much…' Letting her legs dangle back and forth, she giggled, her thoughts drifting to the many interesting things that made up her life in such a rare spare moment of time. Most of her thinking time, when it wasn't spent on Naruto-kun, or training, went to the people who had affected her in her life and who she might have affected.

She failed to notice the shadow that passed by along the ground, creeping ever-so-slowly along the ridges in the bark and pausing at the base of the branch she was currently sitting on.

'I wonder how Haku-san is fitting in living with the hidden-mist village leader, Naruto-kun said he seemed happy with the arrangements. But Zabuza is still travelling, looking to recruit more shinobi for their village, Haku wasn't too happy when he was forced to stay behind I bet.'

Bit by bit the shadow moved across the branch, almost reaching her side. The shadow morphed into a hand whose fingers stretched out, up onto the girl's shoulder.

'Sasuke and Sakura look well, their teamwork really seems to be improving now that Sakura doesn't look at him like a love-sick puppy anymore. Although I don't know how long I can avoid Sasuke, he's been pestering me to show him some more of my magic. He's still power-hungry, how am I going to fix-'

"BOO!"

"Eeeep!"

The hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down to the ground. Screaming as she fell, Hinata tried to grab onto the branches around her with no luck and instead opted for grabbing her necklace and hoping her magic would help her in time. 'Please, please, please Byakugan!'

Her eyes glowed an unusual violet and as she flipped mid-air. A hair-width away from hitting the ground, she managed to project a force that pushed her off the dirt below and forced her to float mid-air. Hovering there for a few seconds, she looked around and saw a smirking woman with spiky hair and a full-length trench-coat at the base of the tree she'd just been sitting on. "Gotcha! Keep your guard up next time gaki!"

"Ugh, sensei…" she dropped to the ground and deactivated her Byakugan, sighing in defeat. The older woman laughed loudly, twirling a kunai on her middle finger in her usual cocky fashion, slinking over to the Hyuuga girl with that annoying Cheshire smile on her face and shaking her head at her young apprentice.

"You'd think after so many years you'd finally learn…" she commented, pulling the younger girl up by the arm and setting her on her feet. "Umm… s-sorr-"

A hand smacked over her mouth and her eyes widened in freight. The older anbu woman was bent over right in front of her face, eye-level to the genin. "Now gaki, what was the third rule I gave you before I took you under my wing?"

"Th-third rule… never apologise, j-just improve…" With a pat on the shoulder Anko turned around and waved her forward. "Come on, we're wanted in the old-man's office."

As they jumped across the buildings, Hinata kept two metres to the side and one behind her sensei, maintaining the same speed and stopping only a breath after she stopped each time there was an innocent walker who went by as they kept hidden in the shadows. For such a loud and eye-catching person, the snake-summoner was surprisingly quiet when the occasion called for it. She was actually deadly-silent, for Hinata had never really been a slacker when it came to people sneaking up on her and remaining undetectable or unseen by others, and she knew not just anyone could get past her guard, even when she was distracted somewhat.

Hinata held great respect for the woman, for despite Anko-sensei's cons, such as her mischievousness, tendency towards torturing and blood, harsh vocabulary, blunt personality, scantily-clad figure… There were a lot of cons (in her opinion). However, the woman was genuine, her loyalty to Konoha was true (despite some of the villager's opinions), and she had a lot to teach Hinata for she was a very, very capable shinobi.

When they reached the window-sill to the Hokage's office both anbu body-flickered past the glass opening and reappeared in the centre of the office, where the Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, sat in his chair, waiting for them.

"Old-man!" Anko crowed as soon as they were inside, she jumped into the chair in front of his desk and spun it around a few times. "So what'll it be tonight? Border-patrol? I heard Kakashi and Asuma caught some bandits last week and I've been dying to show the gaki here more about my… methods… heh."

Both Hiruzen and Hinata shivered at the word "methods". "Nothing so exciting Anko. There's a mission on offer for you specifically, but it would also serve to be valuable training for young Himawari here."

Himawari, a.k.a Sunflower. It was the nickname that Anko had picked out for her young apprentice, to reflect the girl's rather sunny disposition which tended to present itself at the best, and oddly even at the worst, of times (a/n more on that later, call it foreshadowing).

"Lay it on me." Anko cited, already bored at the old-man's slow speech and picking at her nails with her kunai. "You should already be aware of what needs to be done. The forty-forth training ground needs to be prepped for the upcoming event that Konoha is lucky enough to play an important part of."

"Oh… that. See old-man I've been doing a lot of thinking and… well…" She looked into his eyes and smirked. "Well what?" Hiruzen asked, rolling his eyes at the woman's antics. "Well… a while ago in preparation for that…'event' you're talking about, I may have planted some special obstacles in there, those grounds have gotten soft since I killed the man-eating spiders and the ten-foot scorpions left for the warmer desert-climate."

Hinata, who'd been silent up until this point, gasped in shock. 'M-m-man-eating spiders? T-ten-foot scorpions? Those lived in our village?' She gulped a little and turned towards her sensei, who hadn't acknowledged her reaction, although the corner of her lips had tugged up ever so slightly.

"Anko, you know there are plenty of… 'obstacles', in there already." Hiruzen argued. She just shrugged in reply, getting off the seat and heading for the door with a swish of her heavy black trench-coat. "We'll see what else needs to be done, later old-man!" With a wink she pulled Hinata to smoosh into her side and left the room, "come along gaki…"

…

Hinata looked up in awe at the looming silhouette of a huge forest. The distant howl of a lone wolf echoed in the distance and what sounded like a cackle of crows squawked at each other before one was… silenced.

"Sensei… what are…?"

"Don't worry gaki! I'll make sure you don't die." Anko hugged the girl from the side again, smiling mischievously. She pulled out her scroll and rolled it out on the ground, revealing the basic lay of the land fenced off before them. "Welcome to training ground 44, better known as the forest of death."

"F-f-forest of d-d-d…?" before she get out the rest of her stuttered speech Anko stood up from her crouch and rolled her map up again, tucking it away in one of the many hidden compartments in her black anbu trench coat (it was normally a tan coloured coat during the day). She pushed up the halter top that was part of a one-piece body-suit, very similar to Hinata's, only this one clung to the older woman's curves, was made of a more sheer material and rather than the leggings that Hinata's suit ended with her suit stopped as a very short skirt with unseen shorts beneath and her legs were bare, save for the thick combat boots that went up her leg mid-calf. Her outfit basically gave the impression of revealing everything while not actually showing anything, very much the snake-mistress's style.

They kept to the tree-branches, as was the hidden-leaf shinobi style of travel, but mostly because the ground was a muck-covered swamp and who knows what kind of creepy-crawlers littered the ground below. Stopping every now and then so that Anko could check how her traps were holding up, Hinata kept an eye out for any wild animals that could potentially maul them. "Sensei, what were you and the Hokage talking about earlier, with this 'event' that's coming up?"

"It's probably not something first-year genin would be told about, but the chuunin exams are coming next month and this forest is going to serve as the grounds for the second task, which I get to run. It's going to be so much fun trying to kill those brats."

"Kill them?! Sensei how could you?" Hinata scolded, frowning at the way her sensei made a joke out of killing. "It's a way to weed out the weak ones gaki. The weak don't survive, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Still sensei, it's wrong…" Hinata turned away from the older woman and dropped off her branch, reaching a lower one before dashing off in a random direction. Anko rolled her eyes and went after the kid.

She pulled out another scroll and bit her thumb, smearing the blood across the parchment. With a puff of smoke a medium-sized snake wound around her arm and neck, it's hot breath tickling her ear as it spoke. "You summoned me mistress?"

"Long time no see Ava…" she stated, tickling the creatures chin and revelling in the way the single muscle that its body was made up of tensed around her. "The gaki's run off again and I need you to go ahead and catch her before she kills herself."

"You always were the best babysitter." The snake replied drily before uncoiling from her and springing from her torso to shoot off several metres ahead. Within seconds the snake had slithered out of sight, though they weren't known for it, snakes could travel at speeds far beyond humans, if only for a short while. The tell-tale scream of freight made Anko smirk. She sped up and within minutes found her little apprentice far below on the marsh ground, Ava wrapped around her arms and torso and squeezing her until her face turned blue.

"S-s-sensei…" Hinata eyed the woman with as much of a glare as she could muster, given the fact that her life was slipping away exponentially by the second. Anko crouched down beside her and poked her puffy bluish cheek. "Were you planning on running away gaki? There's a lot of big bad monsters around here that could swallow you in one bite…"

'That's nothing compared to the monster before me, and she's ready to bite at any moment.' Hinata thought, rubbing her sore muscles after the snake released its vice-like grip. Usually the older woman was bearable, but tonight she was being insufferable. Hinata tried to remind herself that this was for the best, that Anko was strong and would uphold her end of the deal to make her strong too. But as time passed and the training got worse and worse, Hinata more and more regretted making the deal with her present-sensei all those years ago…

**flashback**

It had been an eventful three months for six-year old Hinata in the most tragic of ways. Her mother had recently passed away due to illness during childbirth, leaving her with a baby-sister and her final words, "please watch over Hanabi my little sunflower. I love you." Needless to say she wept at her mother's bed and promised to follow her given instruction. Hanabi, true to her name, was a firecracker baby, born in the summer and always crying. Whenever her older sister held her though, no matter how red her face was from screaming and crying over silly baby things, she'd always calm down. It was the older girl's calm and gentle nature probably, the branch-member servants whispered this amongst themselves as they watched Hinata hold her little sister and feed her one of the ready-made bottles of another servant-mother's milk from her own recent conception of a child.

A month after Hanabi was born, an incident occurred that Hinata was central to. Kumogakure had been planning a peace-treaty with Konoha, and all of the negotiations and terms of the treaty had been discussed in the Hyuuga main-house, where the village's most influential clan resided.

After they came to an agreement and shook hands on it, the Kumo-nin left. Or so Hiashi Hyuuga thought.

Two of the Kumo-nin snuck back into their house and kidnapped Hinata right out of the house. They'd made it far enough to get to the gates of Konoha, but before they'd crossed the boundary outside of the village and out of Hiashi's clutches, he managed to catch them and kill them. Kumo retaliated to being accused of trying to kidnap the Hyuuga heiress with threats of starting a war if the life of their clan-head was not given in exchange for two of their best shinobi. They would not be swayed, and right when Hiashi had decided to step in and make the ultimate sacrifice, his brother Hizashi took the sword to the stomach and died pretending to be the head of the clan, his identical twin brother.

After being watched over like a hawk from that day forward, Hinata couldn't take the constant monitoring and managed to sneak out of her home. She ran all the way to the cemetery and wept at her mother's grave, crying aloud to the heavens to give her mother back so that Otou-san could be happy again, and Uncle Hizashi wouldn't have had to die, and Neji wouldn't be cold to her anymore.

"Hey kid."

A tearful Hinata looked up from her wailing and met the eyes of a spiky purple-haired woman. She wore a konoha-headband and a trench-coat that reached all the way to her ankles, with thick black boots and a skin tight mesh suit with a leather mini-skirt.

"S-s-s-sorry…"

The woman rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Don't apologise kid, just tell me watcha doing all alone out here?"

Anko hadn't planned on visiting the cemetery that day, in fact, she avoided it like the plague usually. But lately she'd been drawn to the place, the graves of her long-deceased family willing her to their part of the graveyard, where her former sensei had put them under that dirt.

"A-a-ano…I-I-I w-was…"

She crouched down next to the kid and glanced at the head-stone. Hyuuga Akira. "You're the Hyuuga heiress… what the hell are you doing without your babysitter?"

Hinata just shook her head, sniffling and wiping away her remnant tears. "I'll go home now, sorry to bother you…" she left the graveyard with Anko watching her small, retreating back. Such a fragile-looking doll, with those big moon-eyes that shone with emotion very uncharacteristic to the Hyuuga she knew. 'Strange, usually those bigger clan-members have sticks shoved up their asses, even the little brats are too uppity for my taste…'

Shaking her head, Anko followed the little girl all the way back to her clan-compound, where she entered and was immediately swept up by the attentions of several clan-members exclaiming loudly that the heiress had returned, seemingly unharmed.

'Why'd the old man give me this mission? It's ridiculous…'

Twirling a kunai in her normal fashion while she leaned against a tree-trunk, Anko sighed. She'd been assigned to watch the Hyuuga heiress secretly, a mission started only an hour before she met the little girl at the cemetery. While completely coincidental, it served as good a start as any in her objective, to make sure nobody outside of the village touched Hinata Hyuuga.

It seemed she wasn't planning on leaving her home again. Anko jumped off the tree overlooking the Hyuuga compound and trudged off.

Three uneventful days later, Anko was lying on the tree-trunk that had been her designated watch-spot when she fell asleep.

This was a dream. It registered in her mind as soon as she looked around and saw the inside of what looked like a giant stone temple. Intricately painted symbols littered one side of the world and the source of the warm light that cast itself across the long hallway she currently stood in couldn't be seen.

'This is crazy real looking…'

Standing at one side of the doorway, which was a dead-end, the only thing to do was go forward. She shrugged and took a step down the corridor, only to immediately flatten herself to the ground as spears shot out from the sides.

"What the hell?" she yelled, immediately getting back up and dashing ahead as the ground started to crumble away. Arrows and huge holes littered the length of the room that she sprinted across, looking for the exit. She kept her cool throughout the ordeal and managed to make it out of the hallway alive, only to come into a cavern, where a stone coffin lay in the middle.

'This is a dream, why don't I just wake up?' she asked herself, circling around the coffin. High above it a glimmer of light shone down, bringing the tomb to centre-stage.

Anko prided herself on her lack of fear and nervousness in any situation, normal human traits that were conditioned out of her during her time under her former sensei, and almost three years as a fully-fledged anbu-member. Considering the average life-span of anbu was about 6 months, her track-record so far said a lot about her strength as a kunoichi.

So when she shoved the lid of the coffin off and came face-to-face with her former sensei, bound in bandages except for his head, she did little more than roll her eyes anger. "Better just put this back on…"

The tongue of a snake flickered through thin, white lips. As Anko prepared to put the lid back on the coffin, he sat up from his slumbering position and stared at the woman moving around him. "Anko, what a pleasant surprise."

"Really? I couldn't say the same…"

Orochimaru sneered and two sharp fangs came into view. He kept his slanted eyes locked on the girls as she crossed her arms and sneered right back at him. "How the fuck do I get out of here?"

The man continued to smirk at her, keeping his silence. She rolled her eyes and pulled out her kunai. "Listen you sick fuck, I know this is a dream but I wanna get out of here now so show me the exit!"

"Foolish girl, you should know there's no esc-"

His monologue was interrupted by a heavy strike to the face. Standing before him was his former-student, absolutely furious. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" The earth started shaking under the weight of her jutsu as she focused her chakra into making a giant sand-snake. "Orottan jutsu! Earth-cobra!" The snake ascended from the sand as it reared its head up and hissed menacingly.

Orochimaru couldn't help but gulp a little, he'd forgotten that of all the things in the world, what should be feared more than anything else was a woman's wrath. "You need to calm down."

"CALM DOWN?!" Anko drew her fist back before driving it deep into his stomach. "If I don't get out of here I'm going to kill you, slowly… and painfully." Orochimaru gulped, trying to bring his knees up to cover any other important areas she might think of punching before it was too late. The snake slithering behind was growing, fuelled by her rage and starting to wrap around his lower torso. "Please be reasonable Anko…"

The light shining down from the small opening above grew even brighter as the glowing silhouette of a young girl descended from the outside world. She was almost angelic, with a silken lavender kimono and long indigo hair that floated around her body. Anko shielded her eyes at first from the blinding light, but when it dimmed, and she spotted familiar moon-like eyes that glowed even more brightly than the light surrounding her, she was stunned.

'What the fuck… is that gaki doing here? In my dream?'

"Dream you say?" The little girl smiled at her, drawing her trusty staff out. "I'm here to help you escape, that's all you really need to know."

"Thank god!" Orochimaru exclaimed, pushing himself to the ground at Hinata's feet. "Get her out of my tomb, please!"

"Don't think I'm letting you hang around my mindscape asshole. I'll be back for you…" Anko warned him, dropping her jutsu so the snake wrapped around his body and slowly squeezing the life out of him disintegrated back into granulated earth. Orochimaru sweat-dropped as she left with the unknown girl, back up the opening she'd initially descended from.

…

"You don't seemed to be fazed by what's happened so far Mitarashi-san…" Hinata commented as they walked to the top of the vine-covered temple they'd just been trapped inside. "Don't call me that, s'too formal…" the older woman replied, trailing behind the young girl with her hands in her trench-coat pockets. "Also, why the fuck are you here?"

Hinata glanced back once and saw a half-bored, half-pissed off Anko staring back at her. 'She's so cool, having faced her inner-demon… her former sensei Orochimaru… and without even flinching took him down.'

"I'll be honest Anko, I'm a… a witch-hunter, is what you could call it. You have a witch lurking around in your head and I'm here to kill it."

"Oh? The only witches I've seen were frail old ladies with one eye and rancid breath, who terrorised the neighbourhood children and dabbled in black magic. Of course, my grandmother never really gave a shit what other people thought about her heh… fond memories…" Anko cackled mirthfully as she recalled those days before her grandmother kicked the bucket, she owed a lot to the woman, even though she was a heartless bitch most of the time, she knew her stuff when it came to poisons and made Anko the person she was today.

"It's a different kind of witch." Hinata replied, rolling her eyes as they reached a clearing. "You don't really need to come with me, actually, you could have woken up any time…"

"Nah, this is great! Plus I can't let you roam around here on your own… the mind is a dangerous place you know? Especially my mind heh."

'This probably counts as being part of the mission.' Anko reasoned, looking over the little girl's shoulder where the apparent "witch" scuttled along the ground. It looked like a cross between a scorpion and a snake, standing at over thirty feet with a long, clicking tail that ended with a snake's head. Amber eyes turned toward them and several-feet long fangs revealed themselves in the snake's head while huge pincers chomped down on surrounding tree-stumps and cut them clean in half.

"We have to defeat that?" Anko asked, cracking her knuckles with a huge grin. "Yes, it shouldn't be too hard right?" Hinata asked, seeing how enthusiastic the woman looked and taking a step back. "Hell no, I've seen bigger than this. You can hang back and I'll handle it." Before the girl could reply she'd jumped down from the top of the temple and landed right on the scorpion-snake hybrid.

She made quick work of defeating it, by drawing her chakra into her kunai and stabbing it right through the tough exterior of the creature, reaching the innards that drained out so quickly the monster was instantly downed. Cleaning her kunai against the grassy ground, Anko hummed a little tune that made Hinata shiver as she approached the snake-mistress. "You're very strong Anko-san. If you would allow, would you be my sensei?"

"Hmph, what's in it for me?" Anko asked, crossing her arms across her ample chest and tilting her head questioningly. "Well, you'll be able to keep an eye on me better this way won't you? I know you were given a mission to guard me, I'm not blind Anko-san I've seen you outside my window…"

'Damn Hyuuga and their good eyesight.' She thought, nodding her head ruefully. "In return I expect to know everything then, this is some kind of secret life you've got going on right? Do your family or anyone else in the village know about what you do here?'

Hinata shook her head in reply. "You would be the first… sensei." Anko watched her tap her staff against the remains of the monster, drawing a small object out of it and watching it float into her kimono pocket. "Well alright then, training starts tomorrow night, and don't be late." Anko warned with a grin that didn't quite match the evil glint in her eyes, making Hinata gulp nervously.

***end flashback***

"I think we're done here." With a swish of her black trench coat Anko turned away and took off back towards the village and one of the exits located around the metal-fenced fenced perimeter. Hinata followed behind, lost in thought. 'If the chuunin exams are coming soon, no doubt Naruto will do his utmost to enter. I need to be there to protect him… secretly.'

"Sensei…"

"What gaki?"

"Would my team be able to enter the chuunin exams this year?"

"Bad idea, especially since you've just seen what's going to come."

Hinata stopped and forced Anko to turn back towards her. "You're serious about this?" Anko asked, eyebrows raised at the uncharacteristic solemnity the young girl seemed to be displaying. "I mean you've got a better chance than most, after all you were under my tutelage. But the death-rate is 1 in 5 and the passing rate is 1 in 10."

"I can take it sensei, after all, I learnt from the best."

With a single, resolute nod, Hinata gave her most serious expression to the older anbu who only smiled at how cute she looked with her no-business face. "I'll see what can be arranged then, I hope you're sure about this gaki." Anko warned, shrugging as she patted her apprentice on the shoulder.

…

**Update guys! Not many reviews tells me I'm doing okay with this story, but if you have any comments feel free to write. That's all…**


	9. Chapter 9

**...**

**Chapter 9: Chuunin Exams begin!**

He sat atop the Hokage Mountain looking down at the village. On one of its usual clear days he could see everything, every single house and shop, every shanty, all the way to the edge of the forest. As the breeze picked up and played with his hair, he smiled one of his rare, soft smiles and kept an uncharacteristic silence that the rest of the world never got to see. For he was Naruto Uzumaki, the loudest and most boisterous shinobi in the whole village.

Down below, the hustle and bustle of activity really starting to pick up alerted him to the waking village. He'd been training since 5am that morning, sticking leaves all over his body to help with his chakra-control. After three hours he made his way up to his favourite spot high above the village to think about some pressing issues that recently came up.

The Chuunin exams were starting next week and already foreign shinobi had arrived, coming from all over the world to compete in the exams and up their rank from genin. He'd seen several kage pass by on the streets, along with diplomats and dignitaries that weren't really of any importance to him now, however he knew they would be when he became Hokage.

The doors to the West-gate opened and several carriages entered as a procession. The few walkers next to the carriages wore gear custom to desert-living, long robes of white and tan cloth wrapped around their heads and bodies and trailing down their backs as long capes. "Woah! It's the Sand-village!" Naruto decided training was finished for the morning and sprinted down the mountain, making his way towards the newcomers.

…

"This looks interesting…" Kyubey commented as he floated across the air behind Hinata, who was making her way home after training with her teammates in an unusual change of schedule. Neji hadn't been available to spar against her as he had a mission with his team, and Ko was suffering from a broken ankle after Hanabi gave him a run for his money during an earlier match.

"Everyone's arriving early to get the best accommodation in preparation for the exams, by tomorrow all the inns should be booked and the latecomers will have to camp out in the forest and rely on their own means. I've always heard these things were a big-deal, I guess it's a chance to see what the future shinobi of each village will shape up to be." Hinata looked around at the flood of new merchants following the foreign shinobi who'd arrived, attempting to market and sell out their wares. "It's definitely exciting, maybe a little too much for my taste though."

"OI BRAT! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF THINKING YOU CAN DO THAT HUH?!"

A voice around the corner of the walls to the stadium she currently leaned against alerted her to trouble. Peeking around the corner with Kyubey on her head, she spied Naruto-kun and his self-assigned apprentice, the Hokage's grandson Konohamaru in the middle of what could potentially be a fight between them and some foreign shinobi their age. Things weren't going well for them as the boy and girl looked older and bigger than them and the boy, with all black clothing and strange markings in purple paint covering his face, held Konohamaru by the back of his shirt high in the air while he flailed around helplessly.

"Oh no! Maybe I should step in…"

"No Hinata, that has nothing to do with you…"

She jumped in surprise and spun around to face her teammate Shino, who'd silently been tailing her. He'd curiously listened in on the Hyuuga girl's dialogue and would have seriously questioned her senility if this wasn't such a common occurrence he'd been witness to many times over now.

"Shino-kun! What are you doing here?"

"I was seeing you home Hinata."

"W-well umm… you c-could've announced yourself earlier. You almost g-gave me a heart-attack."

Shino remained undeterred by her concerns, tilting his chin slightly. "Why do you feel the need to help Naruto so often? He's never shown any outward concern towards you or anyone outside of his very small circle of friends, who happen to be his teammates."

"That's kind of personal Shino-kun…" Hinata mumbled, looking at her feet as they walked in the opposite direction from the small scene that Naruto had been involved in that seemed to have settled down now. Talking about her crush with her teammate, who she'd come to look at as a brother, was very embarrassing. "Hmm… curious." Shino replied, crossing his arms and turning towards the girl. "Since you refuse to answer that question, how about telling me who you were talking to earlier? Do you have an imaginary friend?"

She flinched, realising how crazy and/or stupid she must have looked talking to thin air. "Yes Shino, I have an imaginary friend. His name's Kyubey and he's… my spirit-guide, actually."

"Spirit-guide?"

She nodded to the Aburame's enquiry, drawing her hands over her face. "He helps me when I'm training on my own to develop some interesting new powers I've recently discovered. You remember that time Naruto-kun saved me from those falling sticks?"

"If I recall, there was no threat because they just floated down instead of hitting you with the expected force of gravitational acceleration…"

"Umm… yeah. It's a very rare genetic trait in the Hyuuga bloodline, but some of my family have been known to be able to control the movement of objects with their mind, or more specifically with their byakugan. I've been training myself to use this new power but it's still kind of weak."

'Imaginary friends? Telekinesis? She truly is a unique individual.' Shino thought, readjusting his shaded glasses. "I'll take your word for it then Hinata. If that power of yours can be honed properly, it would be useful for missions."

"Yes, that's why I'm training to use it." Hinata nodded in agreement as they continued to walk.

…

"This is going to be difficult, but I can't let those other two idiots enter their teams and not let my own team try."

Kurenai shook her head in frustration, gritting her teeth as she hit the training dummy with continuous and precise strikes corresponding to the vital points of the neck and arms of a human. "God damn it, none of them are ready!" When she imagined the head of her training dummy having silver spikes and one eye, its head came off much more easily with a roundhouse kick than it usually would. Trust Kakashi to make things more difficult for everyone else without a care in the world. Although, half of the blame had to lie in that blonde pupil of his. The squirt, as Anko affectionately called their joint apprentice's object of affection, had kicked up a fuss a few days ago with the Hokage to convince everyone of his case as to why he and his team should be allowed to enter the Chuunin-exams with only 6 months experience as gennin.

She stopped short of ripping the dummy apart with her bare hands and teeth, opting to take a break instead. As she dropped to the ground, water-bottle in hand, she detected a presence from behind and her eyes narrowed.

"Anko, I'm not in the mood for one of your surprise attacks!"

The rustling bushes and creeping shadow came to an abrupt stop. "Damn, you're still too good Kure-chan."

Out of the bushes jumped Mitarashi Anko. Wearing her signature maniacal grin and pushing her full-length tan trench coat back, she stood before Kurenai and waved her greeting to her best friend. Having known each-other for years now, the two women shared a strong, albeit shaky friendship that was occasionally tested by Anko's tendency to be an annoyance.

"What's got your panties in a twist?" Anko asked, dropping to the ground next to the ruby-eyed jounin who was glaring straight ahead, still grinding her teeth in anger. "Kakashi and Asuma entered their gennin into the Chuunin exams so now they've forced my hand."

"You can't be that shocked right?" Anko rolled her eyes as she pulled out her kunai and started picking under her nails with it. Kurenai shook her head. "I'm not… I just don't think they're capable of taking on the other gennin, those other kids have at least 2 years' experience over ours."

"It's not about time though, it's skill. Surely you can't be underestimating our training? I'm especially offended considering the time and effort I put into the Hyuuga gaki…"

"I'm not Anko, and I'm eternally thankful to you for helping me work on Hinata, I sense she's stronger than she lets on, it's just her self-confidence issues holding her back…"

'Oh Kure-chan, you don't know the half of it…' Anko thought, shaking her head with a widened smirk. 'Too bad the little gaki has me under a strict oath to not spill the beans about her little secrets, and what Kurenai doesn't know won't hurt her right?'

"Realistically speaking, I understand that they probably don't stand a chance of winning, but this will be good experience. They'll definitely come out strong after what I've got in store for them in 44."

"I guess you're right" Kurenai conceded, shrugging. "Now get your ass up and fight me, I still have some pent-up aggression from last night, Asuma's been too 'busy' to come over lately and I have a lot of extra energy to burn off."

"Oooh, do tell me more." Anko jumped back up and stretched languidly before raising her fists in preparations of one of their usually brutal spars.

…

"That guy was a big bully…" Konohamaru commented as he rubbed his bruises and sore arms, all that flailing around really did a workout on his body. Next to him Naruto was crouched down in an alleyway, looking off into the distance with a serious expression. The younger boy eyed him in bewilderment. "Cheer up boss, we just won a fight against some scary older kids!"

Technically they'd only come out of it victorious thanks to the red-haired weirdo Gaara, who apparently was their brother and had some mysterious authority over his older siblings. 'Who the hell was that kid?' Naruto wondered, chewing on his thumb thoughtfully. "Konohamaru, let's work on our spying skills some more."

"What? Uhh… I mean, sure!"

"Great, you remember that guy with the huge gourd on his back and the tattoo on his forehead?"

"You mean the one who got in the way when I was about to kick tattoo face's ass?"

"Yup, he's our target."

"Hmm, alright." Konohamaru shrugged and pulled out his goggles that matched the boss's pair, tying his scarf around his neck tighter. "Do I need to get the whole team in on this?"

"Nah, Moegi and Udon aren't needed, it'll be a lot more trouble with too many people."

'I wouldn't include you in this either, but I do need help...' Naruto thought, rummaging through his pockets for the small pair of binoculars he usually carried around. As they prepared for their mission he spotted two familiar heads passing by down below from the tree they were hiding in. 'It's Hinata and the creepy bug-guy… uhh Shino, that's right, from Team 8.'

"Hey, isn't she a Hyuuga?" Konohamaru asked, pointing down to the dark-blue headed girl below. "Her eyes can see through walls, they would be useful in this mission boss!"

"And Shino's bugs are good for tracking as well, maybe we could get them in on this…"

Naruto made the decision to include them, because hell, they were entering the Chuunin exams as first years too right? That meant they should be in on trying to get a leg-up on their opponents. "Hey you two!" He yelled out, jumping down from the trees and catching up to them. They both turned towards him, Hinata reacting with a squeak of freight and blushing as she moved to hide behind her teammate. "Naruto. What is it?"

"Heh, always straight to the point huh Shino?" Naruto joked, scratching the back of his head. "I was just wondering what you guys were uhh… doing…"

"We finished training and I was walking Hinata back to her home."

Behind Shino, Hinata timidly looked up at the blonde boy who gave her his usual face-splitting grin. "C-can w-we help you N-naruto-kun?"

'Why can't I ever get rid of this stutter when I'm around him?' she asked, internally berating herself. "I don't know how else to put this, but see there's a really strong kid from another village and I want to spy on him to see what kind of techniques he has, how he trains and all that… It would be useful to have you two in on this, and well, you guys could get some insight into the competition. So it'd be beneficial for the both of us right?"

Naruto nervously made the case to the two members from Team 8, who both looked at him with similar raised eyebrows and expressions of surprise. "I-is that… l-legal?" Hinata asked, directing her question more towards Shino, who'd always been the voice of logic in their team. Beneath the shaded spectacles Naruto could feel the intense gaze directed at him. "It's not. However, as the underdogs of this competition of sorts I do believe that in our best interests what Naruto is proposing may be a wise idea. I realise only now that we know nothing of the other Chuunin hopefuls, but then again Kurenai-sensei only told us this morning that we were being entered into these exams. So maybe we should work with Naruto on this… mission."

"Hey, I'm here too!" From the rustling treetop above Konohamaru jumped down, already geared up and ready to go. The three older kids sweat-dropped at his appearance, Naruto realising that he may have been more trouble bringing along than he was worth, especially when the boy immediately tripped and collided into Shino, who fell back on his side and a sickening crunch indicating the injury of one of his precious kikaichu sounded.

"Oops… heh…"

…

"Where is that baka?" Sakura asked for the tenth time in the last hour, picking at a half-healed scab on her knee as she kneeled against the brick wall of the academy building. Team 7 had agreed to meet up here at noon and start training for the Chuunin exams, but so far only she and Sasuke had bothered to show up. For Kakashi-sensei, it was expected of him to be at least an hour and a half late, but this wasn't something she'd expected of her usually punctual teammate, it was one of the blonde's few redeeming qualities.

"Beats me… still." Sasuke leaned against the wall next to her coolly, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Sakura looked over to him, frowning. Ever since their mission at the hidden-mist village things hadn't quite been the same between them, especially on her side. She no longer held him on a pedestal, in fact, he'd been knocked several notches down. When she took a step back and looked at herself, she didn't quite like what she saw. She'd allowed herself this whole time to be treated like a kicked puppy by him, always crawling up to his feet and licking at his heels when he continually ignored her. Since their mission at wave, that kind of attitude died, to be replaced by a Sakura who focused on herself more than him.

She realised how far above her level her teammates were, in terms of both strength and skill, but that was going to change. Her training upped from two to ten hours a day when she had no missions, and the long hair that she'd tried so hard to maintain after hearing a rumour that Sasuke liked girls with long hair was cut, to be replaced by her current, shorter bubblegum-pink locks.

"Maybe we should just train together? I've been wanting to spar you for a while now Sasuke." Sakura turned towards him and put her hands on her hips, grinning. Sasuke looked away from the wall and glanced towards her, eyebrows raised. Not seeing the love-hearts floating around in her eyes anymore was slightly disconcerting, simply because he'd thought all girls looked that way, save for Hinata. "I suppose. Be warned I don't go easy on anyone, even girls."

"I already know that, and I never want anyone to go easy on me, especially you Sasuke. Now let's do this."

Sakura led him to their usual training-grounds, 14, which was basically a bare patch of dusty earth with two padded mats across from each-other that they used as starting places. As soon as Sasuke touched his mat she immediately charged him and lashed her fist out in a surprisingly swift upper-hook which he was too slow to dodge. He raised his arm up and pushed her hardened bicep back, avoiding the fist that radiated chakra. In return she raised her knee and he had to push back against that too. 'So she's trying to make this fight close-range. That's right! She has no long-range jutsu!'

He jumped back and ran up the tree, pulling out his kunai. "Running away so soon? Well, if it's a game of cat and mouse you want then…" Sakura pulled her own kunai out and twirled it around her finger. She'd once seen a jounin do it while leaning back in her seat in a tea-shop, eating dango. She'd been sitting with Kurenai-sensei from Team 8 and possessed a cool, badass attitude that the Haruno girl greatly admired.

From the tree canopy a line of kunai shot down towards her like hail, forcing her to jump backwards out of their range. "Hah! You can do better than that!"

"You're right." The next set of kunai that came out were on fire, singing the leaves that it passed and leaving trails of smoke as they glowed red-hot. Sakura cursed as one came close enough to slice at the cloth of her hita-ate, forcing her to retreat even further. She jumped up high enough to bat at the flying projectiles and found that some of them disappeared in a puff of smoke. 'So he's cloning his kunai eh? They won't be able to do as much damage as the real ones, so I may have a chance of rushing him and getting up that tree. Or I could always get him down from there...'

There wasn't much else for it, after all she couldn't attack him from this distance and her aim was terrible. Sprinting forward she double-wielded two of her kunai and occasionally side-stepped some of the flying projectiles, hoping what she had in mind would work. "Get out here and face me!" Sasuke smirked as she advanced, willing her to come forward where he'd be ready to incapacitate her. He had the above-ground advantage, was better with weapons and if worst came to worst he could activate his sharingan.

The tree started shaking and his eyes widened in shock. "What the hell are you doing?"

She didn't answer and he found out soon enough as she kicked the tree once more and with an almighty crack the entire trunk was reduced to splinters. The tree began to topple and he was forced to jump out, right into the ready and waiting fists of his team-mate.

"Game over."

…

"OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT MY TEAM!"

After their first day together, planning out how they'd start spying on Gaara no Sabaku of the hidden Sand-village and some other high-profile shinobi, Naruto left Hinata and Shino, dropped Konohamaru back off at his home and was about to enter Ichiraku's when the realization dawned on him. He spun around instantly and sprinted around the corner aiming to head towards the academy, but instead colliding with someone.

"OW! Naruto!"

"Aaah… h-hey, nii-san…"

Naruto rubbed his sore forehead and looked up at Iruka-sensei. "What are you doing Naruto?"

"I forgot about meeting up to train with my team-mates and I'm almost 2 hours late, sorry nii-san!"

"No, wait." Iruka grabbed him by the collar and stopped him from leaving. "I met Kakashi earlier and asked him to come over for dinner, he's gone to tell your teammates and they're coming too. Obviously you're in, right?"

"Huh? Dinner?" Naruto looked at his pseudo older-brother in amazement. "Seriously?"

"Yup, hope you haven't eaten too much ramen already."

Later on the five of them were in Iruka's small but cozy apartment seated on the ground around the table that was loaded with food. Being a single bachelor with no other family around to care for him for years, Iruka had learned how to cook and take care of himself. Naruto couldn't stop snickering as he sneaked glances at the heavily injured Sasuke, who glared into his bowl while Sakura regaled them with the story of her sparring against the Uchiha.

"That's awesome Sakura-chan! You must be training really hard lately, can we spar some time?" Naruto asked, grinning at her team-mate who nodded in agreement.

Kakashi looked at the three gennin and silently marvelled at how far they'd come as a team. 'There may be some hope for them after all in the Chuunin Exams…'  
"We need to talk about something now." He started, setting his empty bowl and chopsticks down. "The Chuunin exams. They've really raised the stakes recently so just to let you in on a few things..."

"The Exams are made up of 3 components, firstly, the written test, which will take place next week. To be held at the academy, you'll meet all the rest of the competitors there. Those who fail this test are immediately disqualified, and trust me, you won't be given an easy time in there with Ibiki Morino monitoring you guys." His three gennin were all listening intently, even Naruto who was usually so fidgety had become still as a statue.

"Assuming you make it through the written assessment, there comes the practical survival test. You'll all be placed in an arena of some kind and forced to compete towards something. This happens straight after the written test and very little details are known about it until the day of, so that's about all I can tell you for now.

"What's the third portion sensei? You said there were three." Sakura piped up, tilting her head curiously.

"Aah, the third portion is another competition, one-on-one against a randomly selected opponent from the remaining gennin. You'll have a month between this last competition and the second."

"That all sounds kinda tough…" Naruto commented, leaning back and sighing. "We better start training right now."

"If Sakura is up for another match, I can monitor you two as you spar. I was actually watching your guys match and I noticed that Sakura is in need of some long-range jutsu, while Sasuke lacks in close-combat fighting. Iruka, do you know anyone who could teach him taijutsu?"

"Well there's always the Hyuuga and their jyuuken-style, but don't you know Gai? He's the taijutsu-master of the village." Iruka replied. Kakashi sighed, "I suppose I do."

"I actually know a Hyuuga who can help me sensei."

Everyone in the room turned towards Sasuke. "And who would that be?" Kakashi asked, a single eyebrow raised. "Hinata Hyuuga." He replied matter-of-factly, causing both Sakura and Naruto to gasp in shock. "Exactly how good of friends are you with Hinata?" Naruto asked, confused and slightly annoyed for some reason. "Never you mind dobe." The dark-haired Uchiha replied nonchalantly. Sakura remained silent, even though inside she was facing an inner turmoil. "If I can convince Hinata to train with me will that do?"

'Well I won't have to talk to Gai…' Kakashi thought, "Good idea, do as you see fit."

…

**I churned this chapter out in two hours and edit stuff as I go, sorry if the first read is rough.**


	10. Chapter 10

**...**

**Chapter 10: Chuunin Exams (continued)**

Hinata meandered all the way home in a blissful daze. She'd just spent the whole day in the presence of her crush, and even though she hadn't said more than ten words, where seven of them were various kinds of squeaks and mumbled sayings, being in the constant presence of the face that looked like sunshine and the lively boy that made her feel warm inside. Tonight she had a mission with Anko-sensei, maybe she'd stop by his apartment as Himawari.

"Hey."

Hinata looked up from the ground in surprise. Leaning coolly against the wall next to the entrance gate of her clan's compound was Sasuke Uchiha, it seemed he'd been waiting for her. "Sasuke-san, what's up?"

He stood up straight and walked right up to her, eyes unwavering as she carefully surveyed him and made sure he didn't come too close. "I'll get straight to the point. Kakashi-sensei told me I need to improve my hand-to-hand and close-range combat skills, so I want you to train me."

"Me? Seriously?" Hinata shook her head. "I'm still a student myself Sasuke, go find someone older and more experienced."

"No, you have more power and potential than anyone I know." He grabbed her shoulder when she tried to push past him and get into the gate, spinning her around to face him again. "I don't have the time Sasuke, now go away." Her byakugan flared to life as she prepared herself to use her power to subdue him, but then he grinned in a way that meant no good would come of what he said next. "Yeah, it must be hard having to be a genin, magical-girl, AND anbu now mustn't it?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "I d-don't know w-what you're t-t…."

"You only stutter when you're lying Hinata-san, or when you're around the dobe." Sasuke replied, interrupting her defensive counter-speech. "Anbu-life suits you, wearing the mask hides your identity and thus your insecurity, and you never have to talk and give away that stutter that your clan judges so harshly."

She remained silent, so he continued his monologue. "I didn't want to resort to blackmail to make you train me, but you leave me no choice. I know about your nightly visits to his apartment, and I know you have feelings for the dobe. Train me, or I tell him."

And so it went that from that day on, Hinata reluctantly agreed to spar against him twice a week. Usually during the night, right after she finished her missions with Anko-sensei, she met up with Sasuke in a secluded location and they set to work training him, although occasionally she joined in, to improve his hand-to-hand combat with the basic jyuuken stances that had been ingrained in her from the age of 4. Technically, they were clan secrets that she was giving out, but what the Hyuuga didn't know wouldn't hurt them. And Sasuke, who was usually proficient at everything he did, was surprisingly lacking in physical-strength, probably because he relied so much on his other traits like jutsu, speed and agility. They began with weight-training, where Hinata loaned him her sealed arm and leg weights that Anko-sensei had stolen from Gai-sensei, her occasional taijutsu instructor and her cousin's team's jounin. Pushing chakra into the weights increased the force of gravity bearing them down, so she started Sasuke off with 5 kilograms on each arm and 7 on each leg. "Every week I'll check your coils and if your muscles aren't straining I'll increase the weight a little." Sasuke nodded in reply, stretching his arms out to test how much slower his limbs moved now.

He proved to be a worthy training partner, quickly picking up all of the moves that she taught him and incorporating them into his own Uchiha-style of fighting that consisted mostly of the kind of movements used in sword-wielding, as he tended to strike fast and withdraw even faster. "You need to hit harder!" Hinata ordered, facing him as they hit their training posts side-by-side. While she made clean dents in the wood thanks to her chakra-powered hits, his barely scraped the surface of the otherwise smooth wood. Sasuke grunted, focusing all of the energy he had left into his fists and using open palms on the wooden target. With a sickening crack the pine splintered and he punched the air in victory.

She was considering giving him her staff again, maybe transforming it into the sword that he'd wielded so well when they were defeating the witch made from his internal-conflicts. Early days though, he actually needed to find his own sword because she couldn't be lending her soul-gem's power out to just anybody, especially someone who, while not exactly an enemy, wasn't really someone she would hold in her inner circle.

After their secret spars Hinata hurried home to clean herself up before Shino was due to come over. It was a good thing that Kiba was busy being trained by his mother, his thirteenth birthday came by last month and signified his coming of age according to Inuzuka tradition, so Tsume had agreed to finally teach him their family's secret advanced clan-techniques. He was rarely seen nowadays, other than their twice-weekly training sessions and simple D-rank missions with Kurenai-sensei, and though Hinata was sad about the absence of his constant presence and especially Akamaru's warm little furry body that curled up inside her jacket sometimes, she knew it wouldn't be too long now before they'd be seeing each-other ceaselessly again when the Chuunin exams officially started.

Shino waited outside her gate for her to come out and then they made their way to Naruto's apartment. "Shino. How do you feel about spying on the other village's entrants?"

The bug-boy maintained his silence for a few moments, to Hinata it felt like she could hear the gears turning in his head. "It's necessary to our success that we do this. And what of your opinion?"

"I think it's… devious. Naruto-kun probably has the best intentions in doing this though, and I trust his judgement…"

"I do too." When they arrived at his apartment they stood at the bottom of his staircase and leaned against the wall to wait for him to come out. "I've released some of my kikaichu to search out a few of our targets early."

"And I've been scanning the area on the way here." Hinata replied, looking around. "It seems clear for now…" At that moment the door slammed open and the usual bright orange-clad figure bounded down the steps towards them. "Hey guys! You ready to go?" Both of them nodded and they all took off for the rooftops.

…

In the darkness of his room the boy sat, staring at the wall with wide-open sea-foam green eyes. He couldn't sleep, he could never sleep, otherwise bad things happened…

'I must control mother…'

The ground around him was covered in sand that shifted gently with every slow, deep breath in he took. In these very rare, quiet moments he felt at peace with everything.

But mother was never one to be sated with peace, at least not for long. He could feel the sand shifting restlessly, willing him to go out and find blood, fresh, red, sweet blood. "Please just… wait. It will come soon, I will kill soon."

The sand quietened down and slowly moved back into the gourd on his back, completely of its own accord. While this occurred, high above the inn he and his siblings stayed in on the building's rooftop, Shino crouched low with his eyes closed, sitting in a comfortable position with his legs and arms crossed. Next to him Hinata had her byakugan active, keeping watch in case anyone saw them. "Shino-kun, what do you see?"

"His siblings are gone. It's just him, sitting alone in the middle of his dwelling." Shino opened his eyes, his uncovered eyes, and Hinata gasped in awe. His pitch-black pupil was surrounded by a gold-tinted iris, and the normally white eyeball was tinted amber with a hexagonal pattern that made his eyes look like those of a fly. Earlier he'd explained to Hinata what he could do, with his kikaichu and a special jutsu that was one of his clan's most powerful, he had a connection to the bugs inside the room such that he could literally see through their eyes. Everything that the tiny beetle planted inside Gaara's room saw, Shino saw.

And over time he would be able to share more than just sight with them. For now though, the range with which he could do this was short, hence the reason they'd needed to be so close to the target to spy on him. "He was training with his sand, it seems he can bend it to his will and now it's going back into the gourd."

"So that's what he keeps in there huh?"

Naruto climbed up to the roof and took a seat next to them, crouching low with his fist tucked under his chin in deep thought. Hinata, too distracted keeping a look out to really feel nervous around him at that moment, simply nodded in reply. "Still no sign of anyone else around. We've been her for three hours now and no activity from him. Does he even train?"

"He meditates." Shino stated, pulling his shaded spectacles out from his jacket pocket and putting them back on. "Evening is approaching and I'm expected at home. Should we regroup some other time?"

Naruto nodded in agreement, following behind them as they took off across the rooftops. When they reached the safety of a crowded part of the streets they integrated into the masses and appeared unsuspicious again. "Well, that was kind of boring..." Naruto admitted, scratching the back of his head. "We could try again tomorrow but it doesn't look hopeful, we might have to change our targets and start spying on the others."

Hinata remained quiet as they walked together. Shino looked back at her once, the slightest crease in his brow indicating his concern about what she was currently thinking. "Hinata, what do you think we should do tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow… we should move onto the other gennin." Both boys looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Why do you think that?"

"W-well… th-there's nothing we can do, h-his powers aren't something we c-can really combat strategically. I think it would be b-best if we focused more on training and improving ourselves, a-and..." she blushed, pulling her fingers together to tap at each-other. She only now realised that she'd been talking a lot, gaining Naruto-kun's attention. He might not like it if she went against his wanting to focus on Gaara no Sabaku. "O-oh… we d-don't have long to spy on them before the e-exams, we n-need to move on…"

After a few moments of silence, Naruto finally nodded, giving her a small smile. "You're right Hinata. Tomorrow we start spying on the other teams, agreed?"

The two members of Team 8 nodded, Hinata more in relief and Shino in placated acceptance. 'It's not that I don't think he isn't important. He gives off an aura that I don't like though, and I don't want Naruto-kun around when I try to help him…' Hinata thought, moving her hand up to rest over the soul-gem pendant resting beneath her jacket, right over her upper chest. "I'm really hungry, you guys coming to get ramen with me?" Naruto asked, rubbing his growling stomach with a worried expression. "I said before, I need to go home. Hinata, you need to eat don't you? I know you haven't eaten since this morning, my kikaichu detected your depleted energy stores."

At that moment her growling stomach sounded, very similar to Naruto's only a bit quieter. 'Oh…' she wrapped her arms around her middle embarrassedly, the blush across her face intensifying. "NO MEAL SINCE BREAKFAST?!" Naruto exclaimed, grabbing her hand. "You need ramen now! Bye Shino!"

…

The two sat side-by-side with steaming bowls of noodles and broth in front of them, slurping up noodles with sighs of content. Hinata tried her best to eat slowly, but the food was so delicious that she eventually let go of all manners and picked up the bow to down the rest of its contents. She hadn't been to the shop in her usual disguise for a week now, it felt like coming home after a long time, only Ichiraku's didn't know Hinata Hyuuga, they knew Himawari the anbu-apprentice. Naruto, who'd already eaten five to her two bowls, watched her eat from his side vision with surprise. Ayame also came over to chat with the store's no.1 customer and his cute lady-friend. "You know, I never thought I'd see a Hyuuga eat at this shop and I've been here as long as I can remember…" The girl with large, pale eyes like the moon blushed and ducked her head low in a sort of apologetic bow, letting her bangs come over her face.

"G-gomenasai, Ayame-san. I-it's true, that some Hyuuga-members believe themselves t-to be above the rest of the village and are too good to eat at ramen-stalls, however I… I don't…"

Hinata, who'd finished her bowl and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, sighed with a sad expression as she struggled to come out with the words, but their waitress simply nodded with a wide smile of understanding. "I get what you're trying to say Hinata-san, don't worry."

"Obviously you're not like that right Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked. She nodded, giving him a small, soft smile. "Y-yeah, I'm n-not like m-most Hyuuga…"

Ayame watched her curiously, seeing the slow blush that spread across the pale-eyed girl's face while Naruto continued to grin widely at her, although he seemed oblivious to her embarrassment. 'Hmm… looks like the girl has a crush on Naruto. She's so kawaii too, reminds me a lot of the anbu whose one of our other regular customers…'

…

Hinata sat on the balcony outside her bedroom looking up at the crescent moon. She awaited the return of Kyubey, who she needed to help her with a pressing issue regarding Gaara no Sabaku. "That boy needs help, and a lot of it…"

"Which boy?" The chibi voice of her spirit-guide came from above, as Kyubey looked down at her from the rooftop awning. "His name is Gaara no Sabaku." Hinata replied, bringing her knees up to her chest. "He's a very… disturbed, gennin. Do you know if there is a witch associated with him?"

"I'll have to check, there are a number of powerful auras around due to all the foreign shinobi flooding the village." Kyubey lay down next to her with his front paws stretched out in front of him. Closing his eyes, he searched the area, asking the Hyuuga-girl for extra details to locate the source of the girl's concern. Through his all-seeing eyes he could detect not only the exact location of every living thing in the universe, but also what lay beneath and around the living; what couldn't usually be seen…

Within the confines of the inn that the three gennin had just vacated, there lay a huge mound of power with a darkness the likes of which he'd never seen before. He gasped in awe at the golden flecks that surrounded the red-headed boy. They were small sparkles in the mud shell that covered him from head to toe, also mixed in was a matte-black darkness that radiated evil-intent. Visions of blood, dead-bodies and gore…

"This one's almost as bad as the Uzumaki-kid's witch."

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata sat up from her slouched position and faced Kyubey. "He's a demon-carrier like that other boy you're fond of. This one isn't as powerful or big, but he has more access to its chakra and far less control over it."

"If he has a demon, I don't know how much we can help him control it…" she bit her thumb softly, frowning. "Can you take me into his mindscape?"

"… well, here's the thing. This boy, his mindscape…"

"What? Tell me."

"I can't take you into his dreams because he doesn't dream. This kid hasn't slept in… years…"

"What?" Hinata put a hand over her mouth to hide the gaping expression. "That… can't be…"

"Believe me, it's true. He is in his most vulnerable state when he sleeps, so it seems he's forgone slumbering altogether."

"That's… crazy!"

She shook her head and stood up to go into the bedroom. "I can't believe he could possibly not sleep for years, but then again it's not the most unbelievable thing I've seen. We'll need to keep watch over him, he's the most dangerous part of these exams so far…"

…

***time-skip***

The first-part of the chuunin exam came and went by with few complications. Hinata looked up at the forest of death in just as much awe as the rest of the gennin who'd passed the test. 'It's really scary looking…' Sakura thought, gulping as she stood between her teammates, nervous about the next task. Since her explosive arrival, the exam-proctor Anko Mitarashi hadn't stopped grinning maniacally. "ALRIGHT BRATS LISTEN UP!"

The slight chatter between the students died down as she ran through the rules for the next competition. In their gennin teams they would be given a heaven or earth scroll and equally spaced around the outside of the fenced off forest behind one of its many entrances. The objective was to obtain both a heaven and earth scroll, then make their way to the centre of the forest where they could open the scrolls and qualify for the third and final stage. Easy enough in words, but when they were left alone in the forest there was no doubt some of the gennin would be looking for any chance to play dirty. Hinata could see in her peripheral vision the other village teams with a bloodthirsty glint in their eye and smirking expressions. 'I'm going to make sure the hidden-leaf gennin get through this alive and safe!'

Anko glanced at her, tilting her head as if to ask how she was while they walked together around the edge of the forest. She nodded silently, trying to convey the message that she was doing okay, but the older woman simply shrugged and looked away. 'Damn gaki…'

'I wonder if Naruto-kun is nervous, Shino-kun, Kiba-kun and Team 10 were pretty vocal about how scary the forest looked, and I could tell just by his face that Sasuke wasn't feeling great about this, but Naruto-kun has kept a surprisingly unreadable expression so far…' Only two hours ago they'd been sitting side-by-side taking the written exam together, and while Hinata had been confident in her ability to answer at least half of the questions correctly, the blonde had left in a blank paper and still exclaimed how confident he was in beating the test. No doubt they'd seen his sheet and there was probably a huge uproar about it, but it was too late to go back on passing him now…

The orange-clad boy was walking several meters in front of her, head down and eyes trained on the ground as he kept in step with his teammates. Hinata worried for him, he wasn't being as enthusiastic as he was earlier…

"Hey Hinata, what are you thinking about?" Kiba asked, pulling Akamaru out of his hood to hobble along the grass on his still short legs. Over the last month he'd been training hard, which was fortunate now with the upcoming physical portions of the exams. "Hmh, nothing much." She replied nonchalantly, allowing him to sling an arm around her as his other arm reached out for Shino and yanked the Aburame into the impromptu team-bonding moment of close contact. "Come on guys, this is it! We're a third of the way to gaining chuunin! Can't lose sight of our prize now right?"

"I concede." Shino pitched in, "We stand a good chance of passing this test because our team specialises in tracking. Assuming we get the other scroll without too much trouble, I already know where we would have to go and we could get there within a day's journey."

When they were dropped off outside their gate with farewells for now and well-wishes from the other hidden-leaf gennin teams, they set to work on strategizing their capture of another scroll and navigating their way through the forest.

…

After wading through shit and mud for the last three days, Ino was thoroughly fed up and increased the frequency she expressed her distaste at their current situation with an unrepressed growl every five minutes. They'd not seen another living soul for so long that they were convinced every team by now had either passed the exam and were waiting outside of the arena, or they were dead. "This sucks… can we just open our scroll and give up already?"

Shikamaru shrugged at Ino's question, looking up at the thick tree-canopy that obscured his view from the sky and his favourite fluffy white objects to gaze at. "This… does suck…"

Choji raised his eyebrows, looking on either side of him to both defeated teammates. He was getting pretty hungry about now, but their food-supply was now down to one pack of crisps that would have to be shared between the three of them. Things were looking abysmal…

All of a sudden, something made him freeze in place. He lifted his large face up as a heavenly aroma wafted past his nostrils and sighed happily. "FOOD!" the large Akimichi boy exclaimed, looking around wildly for the source of the delicious smell.

Shikamaru turned back to his stopped teammate, surprised. "There's someone nearby?"

"Yeah! And they're roasting pork! Oh Shika let's go find them!" Before the Nara, who'd been designated their leader after his best-friend nominated him and no other teammate (i.e. Ino) received support for their self-nomination, could say anything, Chouji was off, following where his nose led. Shikamaru shrugged again and kept pace with the larger boy while Ino hurried along them, looking around wearily. They reached the clearing where the team was, crouching low behind some bushes and listening in on the bragging sound-nin, who were indeed roasting some fresh game while they counted up the supplies they'd pillaged from other teams.

"Heh, you should've heard him squeal Koruno!" one of them said, smirking as he sifted through the stolen supplies and picked what he liked to put in his pack. "The little brats should've thought harder about entering the exams right?" All three of them cackled in laughter, obviously very pleased with themselves.

None of them were prepared when their insides suddenly froze, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling canopy of trees while beneath their bodies their shadows were being manipulated using the Nara's special branch of clan-jutsu.

"Haha! They had both scrolls so we can finally leave!" Ino exclaimed, grinning widely as she fisted the air in happiness for their team finally having obtained the Heaven scroll. The three were currently jumping across the treetops with all the combined speed they could muster, having knocked out and tied the gennin-team up to a tree several kilometres back, they were now rummaging through the supplies they'd picked up from the other team.

"Assuming we get out of this place undetected. My chakra-levels took a major hit after that stunt…" he took one of the scrolls Ino handed him and tucked it inside his shirt, while she sealed hers in a scroll that lay unsuspecting at the bottom of her pack. Strapped across his broad back, Chouji held the two faux-scrolls that would trick any enemies into thinking he held them both, and since he was the strongest of the three of them it would lead the enemy to want to attack him first so the two less physical members could devise a strategy and back him up with their mind-control and shadow-manipulation jutsu. "Do you need to stop and rest Shika?" Choji asked, turning towards his winded teammate. The spiky-haired boy shook his head and surged forward. "I say we don't stop until we get out of this hellhole. Any objections?" he asked. Choji merely shrugged, but Ino looked away from them, and in a small voice said "… if we see Team 7 or 8 in trouble, should we stop and help them?"

Both boys raised an eyebrow at her uncharacteristic show of caring towards their fellow gennin. "I… it, would be dangerous." Shikamaru replied. Ino nodded, "… sorry. I get that it'd be best if we just ignored everything outside of making it to the middle of the forest and getting out of here."

'But… Sakura… I hope she's okay, and Hinata-chan, and I suppose I need to be hopeful for the rest of those idiots too…'

Both Shikamaru and Chouji shook their heads simultaneously, causing her to stop in surprise. "What?"

"Of course we need to help our fellow-leaf out Ino-chan." Chouji stated, with Shikamaru nodding in agreement as he crossed his arms. "If it comes to that, we'll stop. But only if we see them on our path there. Who knows, they might be out of the forest already."

"Oh yeah! You're right Shika, let's go catch up to them then!" Ino led the way this time, a small, optimistic smile on her face, with Shikamaru keeping watch in the middle and Chouji taking up the rear, both of them wearing identical smiles to hers.


	11. Chapter 11

**...**

**Chapter 11: Power-Hungry**

"What the hell… is this guy?"

Sakura couldn't move, she was frozen in place simply by the sheer will of the creature before them, who emitted an aura so dark and unpleasant it made her want to retch. He stood facing away from her, his tall but angular profile outlined with the bright sun that stopped her from getting a clear view. Inky-black hair ran down to the middle of his back, he wore a dark-green bodysuit and kunai held in each hand. She could hear a hissing noise coming from him sounding exactly like a snake.

Team 7 was caught up in a battle against a group of older, more-experienced Otogakure-nin. Though it looked to be a loss for them at first, the three of them had almost pulled through in defeating their foes and gaining the Earth scroll that they'd needed to pass this exam phase. However, any progress they'd made in their fight against the Oto-nin was ruined by this single, unknown shinobi who'd come completely out of nowhere and destroyed their opponents with the flick of his hand.

At this very moment their bodies lay, limp and unmoving, most-likely dead. It had only been six months into their new rank, yet the sight of death did nothing to phase the kids, they'd taken part in killing more than once by now after all, and especially after the incident at Wave-country none of them were particularly traumatised by this incident. "Sasuke Uchiha…" the man stated in a voice dripping with evil-intent. Sakura was still frozen on the ground, unable to do anything but look up from her grounded position as the grass-nin that seemed way too powerful to be a simple gennin approached her teammates who were both glaring at him, even as they too lay sprawled out on the ground dirty and bruised. In only two hits this guy had taken six gennin out, while making it look easier than breathing.

Team 7 was screwed, that was for sure. "What do you want with us?" Sasuke demanded, his shaking arm raising slightly to point an accusatory finger at the man whose pale, thin lips curled up into a derisive sneer. "Now Sasuke, we're in no rush…"

"Rush for what? Snake-bastard!" Naruto pushed himself off the ground, radiating red-chakra that he'd willed himself to tap into. It was the only thing he had to push back against the mighty force bearing down on him. This man was incredibly creepy, with snow-white skin that couldn't possibly be natural and purple bruises around his slanted yellow eyes. He looked more like a snake than a man it seemed, and nothing about his persona gave the Uzumaki a good vibe.

"Uzumaki-san, a pleasure…" the eyes raked over the bright orange of his clothing and blonde hair and blue eyes that reminded him of Jiraiya's former student. Unknowing jinchuriki, sole survivor to the most proficient in fuuinjutsu (art-sealing) clan to ever exist with no knowledge of it himself AND the Hokage's illegitemate son… this boy had a huge amount of potential for great power with no means to tap into it. He was absolutely jealous of this boy, but no matter. He would eventually obtain such power right after he dealt with gaining the sharingan.

As far as Orochimaru knew, Naruto had no idea about his potential for greatness. Little did he know that the Uzumaki was able to draw out the kyuubi's chakra effortlessly now, and it was with this that he got himself back up and mustered all of his willpower to not immediately fall back down. "Answer teme's question and tell us what the hell you want!"

"What I want…" his eyes glanced towards the dark-haired boy as his grin widened. "What I want, is to help you towards the power that you seek."

"We don't want your help monster!"

From behind the pink-haired girl had spoken up, Orochimaru didn't even turn around to face her. Instead, the two boys watched in disgust as his tongue protruded out and ran over two sharp fangs peeking out from non-existent lips. He advanced towards the Uchiha and hissed as his fangs went for the flesh on his neck.

"NOOOOO!"

…

The treetops were a blur of green and brown as they jumped along them, expelling chakra around their bodies to camouflage themselves from the few who crossed them unknowingly. They had both scrolls now and were on their way to the centre of the forest where the tower stood like a shining beacon, drawing them towards it with the promise of rest and advancement to the next stage of the exams. This was Team 8, headed by Shino with Kiba and Akamaru trailing behind and Hinata in the centre. A very faint scream in the distance made them all turn towards the source of the sound. Hinata activated her byakugan and extended it as far as it could go, something about that scream worried her, for it seemed to belong to a very familiar voice…

"STOP!" she cried out, and immediately her teammates complied. "What is it Hinata?" Kiba asked, eyes narrowing in anger and distress at the look on his teammates face. "They're in trouble!" she exclaimed, face down and eyes bulging as she concentrated on what she was seeing. "Team 7 is in trouble! There's someone in this tournament attacking them who isn't a gennin… he doesn't even look human…"

"Hm. We will travel towards them, but maintain our cover." Shino decided, leading the group towards the source of trouble for the other team on an extended detour trip away from the tower. As soon as they reached team 7's location, it was very apparent to everyone in Team 8 that their comrades were in deep trouble, they were barely conscious save for Sakura, who looked terrible with bruises and cuts covering her milky skin and usually bright pink hair now a matted shade of reddish brown. The source of their troubles seemed to have left, but they crouched low beneath the bushes and extended their senses to check just in case.

"He's gone, let's go!" Kiba declared, jumping out of the bushes and rushing towards the injured members of team 7, looking around the area wearily. Sakura was at Sasuke's side checking over his injuries, leaving her other teammate alone. Hinata dropped to her knees beside Naruto, turning him onto his back. "W-what h-happened?" she asked, glancing at his torn and muddy clothing and the deep cuts across his arms and legs. He mumbled something that she couldn't make out, his eyes going in and out of focus and hands twitching. "He's going into shock, Shino!" she called out to their team's medic who'd been standing away from them looking off into the distance. The Aburame immediately dropped down next to them and pulled out his extensive first-aid kit. Handing bandages and sterilizing alcohol to Sakura who took it with a silent nod before returning her attention to the dark-haired Uchiha. "Gomenasai, my kikaichu caught something of interest heading our way and I was momentarily distracted."

"What did you see? Another team?" Kiba asked in surprise, tilting his head towards them even though he and Akamaru kept watch for enemies. He shook his head, "some anbu were chasing the man we just saw here, it definitely seems like he interfered on the exams without our village's knowledge."

"And he seemed to be attacking Uchiha, Haruno, could you explain?" Kiba asked Sakura, who was still busily concentrating on bandaging a passed-out Sasuke. With a last wrap of cloth around his neck and snip of the bandage. She simply shook her head, the pink locks stiff with blood and grime as her haunted eyes looked up and caught the huge pale irises of the only other female there. "Sasuke-kun and Naruto pulled ahead and got to the clearing way before me, so by the time I got there the fighting was over and they were already pulling me away to retreat. But what I saw was… it was a bloodbath…"

She'd glimpsed bodies being ripped apart and blood and guts sprayed across the clearing they'd been in earlier. The snake-guy was standing in the middle of it all with a huge grin, before turning towards them with an even wider smile and proceeding to chase them when they ran. They hadn't even made it twenty metres before they felt the slice of kunai tearing at their limbs and the force of an unknown jutsu burning their backs and sending them flying to the ground. With that description of the lead-up to the moment of Sasuke being bitten and the creep leaving, Sakura ended her story and fell into a sullen quiet that darkened the overall mood further. Shino had finished checking over Sasuke after Naruto, and while he was deeply suspicious of the bite-mark he'd received, with black ink marks that were spreading across his neck, there was nothing he could do for it required skill beyond his expertise to fix a cursed seal, something he'd only ever read about in the outdated medical text-books Kurenai-sensei had loaned to him. "That bite he gave Sasuke isn't ordinary, it's a curse-seal…" he voiced, dark shades glinting as he looked towards his teammates and Sakura solemnly. "Naruto needs sleep and time to recover, he will be okay after a few hours, Uchiha-san however…"

"We'll take them with us to the tower… right?" Hinata asked hesitantly, not wanting to demand so much of her teammates, but at the same time knowing that team 7 probably wouldn't make it out of here alive without their help. Her worries were for naught however as her teammates nodded in agreement.

She kept guard with continuous and exhausting use of her byakugan, leading the way to the centre of the forest where the tower was now outlined with bright torches in the darkening sky. Behind Hinata, Sakura struggled to keep up and not just fall to the ground in exhaustion, while a sleeping Sasuke and Naruto were lying on Shino and Kiba's backs respectively. Suddenly, Hinata stopped, eyes bulging once again. "What is it now?" Kiba asked with a quiet sigh, while Sakura's shoulders drooped and Shino's calm demeanour stiffened slightly. The last thing they needed was more trouble…

"No, nothing bad…" she smiled and jumped into a clearing far ahead of them, shouting out to give sign of her presence to the other hidden-leaf team who sat in the clearing. "You guys are alive!" Ino shrieked in shock and awe at the roughed-up looking bunch of gennin before her. They were just packing up their camp-site and getting ready to make the last of the journey to get out of the forest. "Speak of the devil, we were just talking about you guys…" Shikamaru admitted, shrugging his pack on and tucking his scroll into the inner-pocket of his vest. "Please tell me both of your teams have their two scrolls…"

"Yeah, we got them…" Sakura disclosed, pulling them out of her pack while Shino and Kiba did the same thing. While Team 8 had decided to leave the scrolls with the two physically strongest members, leaving Hinata free to move and back the others up as she pleased, and Team 10 had done something similar with the more devious altercation of hiding the true scrolls and wearing the fakes visibly, Team 7 decided to give both scrolls to Sakura and made her the utmost priority to protect and defend, similar to a strategy they'd adopted in Wave-country when she was left close to Tazuna while the boys went far from them and did their best to protect them.

They made it to the tower and with sidelong glances between them, took the scrolls in their hands, with Hinata helping Sakura to open both of her scrolls since Sasuke and Naruto were still knocked out. When each set of two scrolls were interlocked and unravelled, three poofs of smoke were released and out popped their smiling respective sensei. "Congratulations, you made it. And you all passed together too…" Asuma was about to give his gennin a hearty pat on the back when he noticed their grim expressions. "What's the matter?"

"Team 7, they're still in terrible condition." Ino replied, eyes watering as she watched Sakura faint in her sensei's arms upon Kakashi's arrival. "We're all heading straight to the hospital." Kakashi stated, pulling another scroll and biting his thumb to summon his ninkai who would transport his unconscious team. "For once, you're taking things seriously…" Kurenai mused, as she inspected her team and found some healing was in serious need. "Let's go."

…

The three members of team 8 were in their hospital-room playing a game of cards to pass the time. While Kiba lay sprawled out across his bed rubbing his chin in concentration and staring at the hand he'd been dealt, Shino sat on a chair across the table placed in front of Kiba's bed and Hinata sat on the foot of his bed with Akamaru napping in her lap; both had their own hands and were waiting for Kiba to make his move.

"Shino, any 2's?"

"Go fish."

"Damn…" he picked up another card and groaned, indicating it wasn't a match with anything he had. "Man this sucks! Did sensei say when we could go?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest." Hinata replied, "Kiba, you have a 2 right?"

"Whhaaaat?" he pouted as she plucked the card from his hand while giggling. "You're cheating aren't you? That was the fifth time in a row you've guessed my cards."

"Of course not Kiba-kun, you just asked Shino for a 2 so it was pretty obvious…"

"Yeah, but I never showed you which card in my hand the 2 was." He pointed out with a frown, causing Hinata to look away guiltily as she continued stroking the little white puppy's fuzzy white fur and soft brown ears. "Erhm, well I may have been using my byakugan to check outside our room for Kurenai-sensei and spotted your hand for a second… or two…"

"Dirty cheater." Kiba shook his head and pushed his cards away. "Perhaps there is something else we can do to pass the time." Shino suggested, putting down his own cards and standing up. "My kikaichu require nourishment, I am heading to the cafeteria if you'd both like to accompany me."

Though neither of them were particularly hungry, they got up and followed behind their team-leader for the sake of warding off boredom, with Akamaru tucked into Kiba's collar still sound asleep. On their way to the dining-hall, loud voices could be heard from behind a half-ajar door. "It's Naruto-kun…" Hinata said softly, having already seen him with her byakugan, plus the howl of pain was definitely his gravelly voice accompanied by Sakura growling at him. Kiba, being the nosiest of the three, peeked his head in through the doorway and yelled out to team 7.

"Yo! What's up guys?" he asked, looking around their room curiously. In reply he received nothing but a sigh from Kakashi who hadn't even glanced at him and leaned against the window reading his little orange book. On the other side of the room Sakura had her hands around Naruto's neck and was attempting to strangle him for some reason, while Sasuke had turned his front against everyone and stared out the window with a glare. "Kiba… help me…" Naruto struggled to get out the words as he extended a bluish-tinged hand out to the Inuzuka, who scrunched up his face.

"Sakura, let him go…" Kakashi told the pink-haired girl, finally putting his book away when he noticed his pupil's life was seriously in danger. The Haruno-girl did so eventually, crossing her arms with a huff and turning to look out the window in the same direction as Sasuke. "Teach him not to jump on my bed and mess it up again…" she muttered with humph. Naruto massaged his neck to rid it of the numbing feeling as he got up and walked over to Kiba. "Hey Kiba, where you heading?"

"Me and my team are gonna get something to eat, you wanna come?" he asked, throwing his thumb back to point out the quieter members standing in the doorway. Naruto spotted them and waved with a big grin, causing Hinata to blush and duck her head as she waved back shyly, while Shino simply nodded coolly. "Let's go then…"

"I need to use the bathroom…" Kiba promptly got up from his finished meal and left with Akamaru following at his heels yipping. As soon as he was out of earshot Naruto immediately brought up their secret espionage mission. "When can we meet up again? I got Kakashi-sensei to tell me which teams made it through and apparently the sand-village team were out of the forest on the first day! There's way more to Gaara no Sabaku than first meets the eye and we need to get to the bottom of the source of his power…"

Hinata's eyes widened in surprise while Shino stiffened even more than usual. "B-b-but it c-could've b-been one of h-his t-teammates…"

Naruto shook his head, he knew for sure their main source of strength was due to the demon locked inside the red-haired boy, although there was something else about him that no-one, not even Gaara himself, could possibly know about. "Trust me guys, I know without a doubt he's central to their power, it happens to be a natural instinct of mine to detect these kinds of things." After pushing his empty ramen-cup away he threw his hands behind his head and grinned. "Soooo… when?"

"I-I'm f-free this w-weekend…" Hinata managed to stutter out, hiding her blushing face behind her cup of green tea. Shino put his arms on the table to allow the insects that had been crawling in his rice bowl back into his sleeves and their host-body. Naruto only now realized they'd been scuttling around the whole time and weren't just part of the Aburame's food with a shiver that travelled all the way up his spine and made him want to take off his clothes and check them for stray ticks. Hinata wasn't bothered by it but seemed to be internally struggling to say something more. "Saturday morning. I assume we will be doing much of the usual."  
Shino stated, although it sounded like it was meant to be an enquiry so Naruto was a little confused but answered anyway. "Yeah, spying on them when they train and do stuff around the village. Hey Hinata-chan, you look like you have something else to say…"

"A-a-ano, N-naruto-san…" she blushed an even deeper shade of red and ducked down behind her tea again, wrapping her hands around it and staring into the murky green depths of the remaining hot liquid. 'He called me chan…' she thought happily, momentarily distracted before she shook her head of such thoughts and returned to her verbal struggle. "I-I w-was just w-wondering if… S-Saturday afternoon… training… w-with us…"

She eventually gave up and looked to Shino with pleading eyes, who nodded and helpfully explained. "Hinata is asking if you'd like to join team 8 when we train right after our espionage mission, since Kurenai-sensei told us earlier she won't be able to make it we're short of one sparring-partner to make the necessary pairs."

"Are you kidding? Hell yeah I'll be there!" The blonde gave a goofy smile and thumbs-up, looking at Hinata with a pleasantly surprised expression. "Thanks a lot for inviting me Hinata-chan!"

"E-eh…" she kept her head bowed but he could still see the smile that she tried her best to hide. He brought out a hand and tilted her chin up, eliciting a surprised gasp from her. "You should smile more Hinata-chan…" he said, still grinning as he scratched his head. Over these last few weeks he'd learnt a lot about these two fellow hidden-leaf gennin, more than he'd ever learnt about them during their 4 years of academy-training together. They were both naturally quiet and reserved people, not at all dark and weird like he first thought, but while Shino's quietness spawned from being shunned all his life having come from a clan with unconventional practices, and being shunned was something Naruto understood more than anyone and could relate with, Hinata's quietness was very much a mystery to him. She was always blushing and stuttering and he worried that her fainting probably affected her work as a shinobi negatively and severely. Her sort-of invitation had been the first time she'd ever tried to initiate a conversation-topic in fact, so maybe there was improvement on the way.

All of that being said, Naruto couldn't help but find himself especially fascinated by Hinata Hyuuga, of these two who were helping him, for she truly was a mystery. He claimed to have an instinct for power, and what he sensed coming from the girl with huge eyes like the moon was definitely something. 'Not to mention she reminds me of anbu-chan when she takes small sips like that, but I doubt anyone could pull off a double-life like what it would take for Hinata to be a gennin and an anbu so it's probably not her. And when she smiles it's kind of the most adorable thing I've ever seen… wait, what?' he shook his head of that last thought and reminded himself that he liked Sakura-chan, not Hinata-chan. 'Can't go changing my crushes just like that, that's pretty much the same as breaking a promise right?'

Her smile was smaller, though no-less bright, as she nodded at him with a reply that sounded like "o-okay Naruto-kun, I-I'll try to smile more…" before she ducked her head again and looked pointedly at Shino. The Aburame cleared his throat and stood up. "I see Kiba is on his way back, we're going to return to our room. Naruto, feel free to join us for a game of cards…"

"Beat's hanging around the teme and his attitude…"

"I thought that emo-thing was just a way of life for him?" Kiba commented, shaking his head in disapproval. "He wastes so much of his time glaring at the wall, honestly…"

'Just like Sakura wasted so much time staring at the back of his duck-butt head, although she seems to have improved lately…' Hinata thought, rather than voiced. "And Sakura, how do you put up with her always hitting you?" Kiba asked, frowning at the Uzumaki who simply shrugged and looked at the ground. "It's probably something you wouldn't understand, but I think negative-attention is better than no attention at all…"

The Inuzuka raised an eyebrow at that, "yeah you're right, I don't understand."

…

The next morning they were all finally out of the hospital, fully-healed and well-rested, more restless actually. Accompanied by team 10, who'd pretty much slept the whole time after their much higher exhaustion-levels than the other two teams, team 7 and 8 left the hospital and went back to their normal routines of daily missions and training in between. They needed to be prepared for the upcoming final round, which was going to be a series of versus matches randomly chosen by drawn lots from a hat. The number of remaining gennin was still high apparently, and this left Anko in a very bad mood, as she scuffed her boots across the dirt with a dark expression. "Knew I should've added the giant snakes, those gaki's are probably running about without a worry, thinking 'wow that was a piece of cake!' gaah!" she stomped the ground hard and turned to her anbu-apprentice with a swish of her black trench-coat and fire in her eyes. "Impromptu training session!"

Hinata knew that was the only warning she was going to get with a deep sigh, and she immediately sprinted for the forest as a rain of flaming kunai descended down from the night sky like deadly but still beautiful and very sharp meteorites. "Sensei, please have some mercy!" The response from the older woman was a cackle of laughter followed by an explosion that could be heard from across the village.

…

'Hn, she's training…'

Sasuke crouched low at the base of the Hokage Mountain and stared down at the scene of a young girl being chased by a horde of snakes while dodging flaming kunai. The source of the things trying to murder her was nowhere to be seen, although he could hear the cackling of somebody else nearby, probably a woman, also... probably insane...

But only so much of her running could be interesting before he found himself staring blankly into the distance and thinking once again about the creepy snake-guy who'd offered to get him out of the village and closer to killing his brother. Orochimaru, the snake-summoner and one of the legendary three of the Hokage's former students; one of the most powerful men in history...

Sasuke knew without a doubt that he wanted what this man offered, and nothing would stand in the way of getting the power he sought to be able to defeat and kill his brother and avenge his clan. The only problem would be escaping this village. No matter, the time for such things would come soon, as the time for all things eventually came.

...

**Theo's back! Exams are over and I'm on holiday/break so I've finally got the time to give that long-awaited update. Honestly it was pretty hard to churn out something after that earlier brain-work, but writing fanfic is a surprising stress-reliever and I couldn't just abandon this story right? So I managed to get something out there for you guys who are awesome enough to stick around. Again, big THANKS to subscribers and favouriters! ^_^**

**Anyways, expect another chapter by this time in two weeks okay? I'll be editing as I go (as usual) so sorry for any mistakes you spot, I'll get around to them eventually...**

**Peace out guys till next fortnight! **

**Theo. **


	12. Chapter 12

**...**

**Chapter 12: Face-off**

Neji Hyuuga had always been considered a prodigy by his clan. He was proficient in every one of the techniques Hiashi had allowed him to learn and as strict with himself as he was with his associates, who happened to be his teammates Tenten and Rock Lee. Currently, the three of them were waiting in the corner of the reception area inside the hidden leaf village's stadium where the ballads were being drawn for the one-on-one matches kicking off tomorrow.

While Tenten looked around the room at the remaining gennin and sized each of them up, and Rock Lee was currently doing stretches in anticipation of what was to come, Neji stared at the back of a certain short indigo-haired girl with a look of cold fury. "So that weakling is still alive? Hm. A fluke, or stroke of luck… yes, that has to be it. No matter, this next round, she won't carry on, she can never carry on being a shinobi…"

An elderly man walked into the centre of the room of 20-something contestants, clearing his throat and holding up a plain white box that rattled noisily with every shift he gave it. The teens settled down respectfully and allowed him to explain the next stage of the exams. "Alright kids, listen carefully!"

He cleared his throat again, a deep gravelly cough coming out of his throat in a way that made his body tremble. This man was shaking like a leaf in the wind and crouched low with arthritically pained limbs, his voice came out like gravel… yet it was still audible to the entire room, amplified by a special jutsu, and he still contained the strength to lift up the box, which was all that was needed. "This box contains 23 balls labelled with each candidate's special number. You will line up and pick a ball, thus determining the order and placement of the candidates for each match…"

At his order the teens formed a single file line and picked a ball from the box, everyone keeping their hands over the ball and waiting until the entire line picked. Gasps of shock and awe, fear and trepidation, but mostly… silence, a quiet so deafening the sound a of the tiniest pin dropping could be heard. The exam-proctor took the balls from them and write their name on the back of the number, then placed them on a board so that the order of the matches and who fought who would clearly be shown. "The first match starts tomorrow at noon, between Dosu Kinuta and Chouji Akimichi."

The gennin looked at their opponents with a variety of expressions and concealed emotions. From the hidden-leaf gennin, Chouji, Sasuke, Tenten, Shikamaru Shino and Lee were facing opponents named Dosu of the sound village, Zaku of the sound village, Kin of the sound village, Temari of the hidden sand village, Kankuro of the hidden sand village and Gaara of the hidden sand village respectively. Though these gennin had no problem seeing the outsiders as their foes, the leaf-gennin who were facing each other were also battling with the inner turmoil of having to fight against their supposed comrades, for real this time. Naruto and Kiba eyed each other wordlessly with agape mouths and widened eyes, almost exact mirrors of eachother especially with their similarly feral appearances, since it had been announced that with their consecutive numbered ballots they were the third pair to come up and would also be fighting tomorrow. Ino and Sakura eyed eachother nervously, neither having any idea how the other girl had improved in skill since they'd stopped talking and hanging out together following a fallout over some petty argument (probably Sasuke-related...), nevertheless, with tightened fists and equally determined expressions each girl silently wished the other good luck in the match they would fight in two days against eachother.

That left Hinata, who in a shocking turn of events would face none other than her older, stronger and much fiercer male cousin Neji, who'd kept the characteristic kabuki-mask blank expression of the Hyuuga the whole time of the match announcements, although it was hard to supress the tiny smirk he wished he could so disrespectfully bring forth. 'So I get to take her out in the first round huh? While I'm obligated to protect her from further harm by not letting her advance and take on the other stronger gennin here, fate has dictated that we meet eachother head on, and I can't deny that I will enjoy beating- maybe even humiliating- her in front of the whole village…'

Hinata had left the building as soon as her opponent was announced, trying to fight back a flood of tears and the need to scream out her frustration. Of all people, why him? Why'd she have to face Neji? "Figures, that's just my luck I guess…" she thought, gritting her teeth and clenching her fist as she banged them down on her thighs to let out the pent up anger. It was hard, trying not to cry and scream out and throw all her power into punching the tree she'd jumped to that was in the middle of the forest, far away from onlookers and private enough for her to have some time to find her composure. She sighed deeply, looking off into the distance and wondering if Kyubey would be able to just take her away, to never return and have to face her cousin. 'It's not like I don't think I can beat him, but how am I supposed to do so without revealing my true power to the clan? But if I throw the match he'll know, he's always been able to tell when I don't fight with my all, in fact, the whole clan can read me as easily as a book when it comes to my limits. And they're especially adept at pushing my buttons, knowing exactly what to say or do to cut me deep emotionally, how to make me cry… they're all just a bunch of bullies!'

Scuffing her shoe against the rough tree-bark, she pulled out her small soul-gem pendant and pressed her lips to it, mustering a little power so that she could summon Kyubey, who hopefully wasn't napping and would be able to take her to find a witch, the fighting would be a nice distraction from the upcoming fight she didn't want to happen…

Nobody had noticed her leave yet, so taken with their own stressful situations and new rivals. "Should be interesting to watch huh?" Tenten commented with a lopsided grin, "I've heard the Akimichis have a special kind of chakra that hardens their bodies and makes themselves the weapons!"

"Correct Tenten!" Lee replied in his usually cheerful voice, looking off into the distance with a glint in his eye in a very good imitation of their currently preoccupied sensei. "Gai-sensei has told me of his many spars against the powerful clans of Konoha, and he stated that in terms of pure force, nobody can punch harder or absorb a hit better than an Akamichi!"

"Cool!" Tenten's eyes sparkled as she imagined what it would like to have that kind of power. Having grown up with a family consisting of a mother who owned and ran a weapons shop and a father who worked there as a blacksmith, she'd always had an avid fascination for blades and melee weapons of any sort. While Lee was being his usual over-the-top self and punching and kicking the air as one of his many forms of training Neji seemed to be lost in his own depressing world, she then noticed with a worried side-glance. "Something wrong Neji?"

"Hm? No…" the Hyuuga replied in his usual serious tone. His arms were crossed and stare focused in one direction, she trailed the path of his line of sight and, with a sigh, realised he was at it again with sending death-stares at his cousin, the heiress of his clan and technically his master. While Tenten personally didn't know Hinata Hyuuga, or any one in Neji's family actually, the two times they'd met when her and Lee went to the Hyuuga compound to pick up her cousin, she'd been nothing but gracious and way nicer than Neji made her out to be. Tenten knew he had issues with being a branch-house member, Gai-sensei had secretly explained to them the circumstances he had to live in so it was understandable that he was angry and considered fate to be predetermined. 'But still, he doesn't have to be such an ass to her! It's not her fault after all…' she thought, shaking her head in pity towards Hinata. In a way, Neji should be pitied too, but as long as kept wrongfully mistreating his cousin he'd get none from her.

…

*****Time skip! I suck at writing extended fight scenes, and it doesn't feel like new material. It's extremely boring to write out every match, you know what happens in the anime/manga… although I'll be changing some of the outcomes i.e. who wins…*****

…

Sakura leaned back against the wall furthest from the arena, where far below a fierce battle was playing out between the Hyuuga cousins, neither of which seemed to be ready to give up soon. While she should have been entranced with the match, like all the other hidden-leaf gennin seemed to be, she was still bummed out about the fact that she'd lost against Ino in her first round. Well, at least she'd given the blonde a run for her money, while she'd managed to manipulate her mind and force her to raise her hand and say she admitted defeat, Ino was now currently in the hospital nursing several broken ribs and a cast on her leg from the beating she'd received by the pink-haired Haruno. She was sad at her defeat, but even more prominent was the worry about her unspoken best friend, who slept peacefully. When this last match of the day finished she would go back to the hospital and wait for her to wake up, so Sakura could apologise. The pink-haired girl thought that if she watched this match, and learned the winner's techniques, she could find some flaws that would be helpful to the Yamanaka should she end up facing the victorious Hyuuga. A huge uproar from the crowd forced her to snap her attention back to the match, as she shot up and ran to the edge to see for herself, "what happened?" she asked with a frown.

Leaning against the railing overlooking the arena were the other members of what had come to be known by the village as the rookie nine, minus Ino and Kiba, all equally absorbed in the match. "Hyuuga-san, he just pulled off the clan's hardest technique, 8 trigrams 64-palms…he'll be a troublesome opponent when he wins this match." Shikamaru replied, leaning his chin against one hand as he stared down intently in what was the most serious expression Sakura had ever seen from the Nara boy. "Hey wait a minute! Who says that teme's gonna win?" Naruto exclaimed with a scowl, not turning away from the fight but still arguing. "That Neji guy may be strong but so is Hinata!"

"I'm cheering for Hinata, because she was nice enough to bring me these packs of my favourite potato chips once I got out of the hospital yesterday!" Chouji said, munching one of said packets with a bright smile. "And she's a lot nicer than Neji altogether, and our friend, and one of us, more so than him anyways…"

"Exactly Chouji!" Naruto replied agreeably, patting the much bigger boy on the back. "Hey teme, what do you think of the match?"

Sasuke was watching too, as far away from the others as he could possibly be, standing in the corner between railing and far-left wall with his usual blank expression. After a few seconds of contemplation, he finally grunted, "Neji's going to win, he's the stronger one after all…"

'And Hinata's dangerously close to bringing out her other powers, which she probably won't do, she'll give up before she has to show off…' he thought privately, crossing his arms and glaring at the Hyuuga girl while shaking his head. 'That idiot doesn't truly know how to harness her strength, if only it were mine…'

'Seriously Naruto, you forgot about me still? Even though we've met several occasions during our off-time when you enlisted my and Hinata's help in spying on Gaara no Sabaku?'

Shino glumly stood in the darkest, furthest corner away from the railing, looking at everyone's backs just like Sakura had been earlier. In fact, she'd been right next to him and hadn't even noticed his presence, maybe rudeness was just a trait that ran in all of team 7 members? After all, they were the students of the notoriously late, highly irritating and extremely closet-perverted (all according to Kurenai-sensei) Kakashi Hatake, so his habits were bound to rub off on their easily affected young minds. 'Not that anyone cares, but obviously I support Hinata, though I'm not sure if she'll overcome her cousin just yet, the potential still lies within her, dormant, waiting to be awoken…'

'I guess we'll just see who wins this bet then, between the teme and Shikamaru who are for Neji and me and Chouji who support Hinata…' Naruto thought with a grim expression. He privately thought of the shy Hyuuga girl, who was always blushing and stuttering. Following his and Kiba's fight, which he'd very barely managed to pull through winning by being the last of the two to fall to the ground (and seriously, he was up just a split-second longer than the Inuzuka), Hinata had been the first one to jump down to help them, with Shino close-behind. What surprised him more than anything, was the fact that she'd actually ran to him instead of Kiba.

****flashback****

"Shino-kun, you know what to do for Kiba right?" Naruto could hear the soft voice yelling and the sound of light footsteps against gravel, before a cool and small hand was brought to his forehead. "Hai, help Uzumaki out and make sure he's stable, it'll be faster for us to take them to the hospital now than wait the few minutes for the exam-officials." Shino stated in his usual no-nonsense tone, unzipping the Inuzuka's jacket to check for wounds on his chest. Lying next to his master, Akamaru whined softly and licked at Kiba's hand which was twitching slightly. "Mmh… st-stop it Aka…" his weak voice told the puppy, who yipped in excitement and jumped up to face him with the dog-equivalent expression of relief and happiness.

"N-naruto-kun, wake up…" she said, leaning close to whisper in his ear as her hands glowed a soft lavender, pushing her chakra into him so his chest glowed and he could feel a tingly warmth travelling through his body. Funny, there was that familiar voice telling him to wake up again. "One time, when I was having a nightmare, I heard your voice…" he said quietly, keeping his eyes closed and smiling softly. "It felt just like this, when the demon was trying to get out, and you told me not to be afraid… heh, I probably sound crazy right?"

She was silent for a while, and he peeked a single, heavy eyelid open to see what she was doing. While her cheeks were a furious red and her brow was furrowed, she didn't seem fazed by his rambling. "Th-that's o-okay Naruto-kun, dreams are always a little weird right? Now I'm going to need you to sit up, Iruka-sensei's going to take you to the hospital now."

****end flashback****

…

Iruka sighed as he watched the match between the two Hyuuga teens, sitting in the section of the onlooker's station with the other exam-proctors, a cumbersome dark blue sash with his temporary title stamped across it placed diagonally around his torso, just like the others. So far all of his students had come out of their matches relatively unscathed, or at least without any permanent damage that could hinder their progress as shinobi. They'd all visited the hospital and only Ino and Kiba were still in there, but they looked to be recovering nicely.

No, Iruka wasn't worried about any of his former students more than he was for Hinata. In her situation, with her cousin who looked to be out for her blood, a so-called "prodigy", who'd killed several people already on some of Team Gai's higher ranked missions with just a single flat-palmed charge of chakra. Iruka heard the rumours, heard every single story about Neji Hyuuga, and knowing these stories, watching him prove himself to be worthy of these stories, it was what scared him more than anything. "Hinata, why are you still trying to beat him?" he mumbled with pain-filled eyes, clenching his fists. Far below in the actual stadium, chaos ensued. Rather, it was controlled chaos, the very earth seemed to be rising around them as the two teens faced each other, byakugan eyes ablaze with pale light and hair whipping up around them as the air swirled uncontrollably.

"You just… never. Give. Up. Do you?" Neji growled, too quiet for her, or anybody, to actually hear. Her arms were raised in front of her, expression scrunched up in a snarl as she fought against the swirling dome he'd created and tried to advance towards him. He increased the force of gravity by spinning even faster, focussing entirely on her, unblinking, an impenetrable force. The sleeves of her jacket tore off and her arms bled as the wind cut into them deeply, all the way up from her wrists to her elbows. She finally couldn't move anymore, stumbling back once. He used this opportunity to stop the attack and ran towards her, kicking her right in the stomach and forcing her to smash her back against the arena wall with enough force to crack the stone behind her.

Hinata was completely numb as she slid to the ground and blood came from the back of her head, a long streak of blood running along the stone with her. 'I can't move anything anymore…' Her bangs hid her eyes, arms dropped uselessly to her sides and legs crossed of their own accord as her backside hit the ground. To everyone there, this may have seemed like the end, and it most certainly was in Neji's opinion, as he crossed his arms smugly and smirked. "She lasted longer than I expected, but of course I won, it is fate after all…"

"NO HINATA-CHAN!" Naruto yelled, pushing himself off the railing and only just being caught by the other leaf-gennin who forced him back. "Not yet dobe! The match isn't over." Sasuke hissed with a restraining arm on his shoulder, even though he wanted just as badly to jump in there and kick Neji's ass after helping Hinata. "Hinata, is this it for you? Or do you have something else… planned…" The last of his thought carried off with a small gasp as he looked back down at the fighting pair. Hinata had looked so… defeated, earlier, that it seemed nothing could be done. So what was this mist surrounding the battered and vulnerable girl? And why was that mist growing?

'Hinata, what the hell are you doing?' Sasuke asked in his head, watching the mist spread and cover everything below, so thick and white that apparently even some of the other Hyuuga were exclaiming that they couldn't see into it. Neji shouted something to the exam-proctor who'd been on his way down to declare the girl unfit to continue fighting and thus hand the victory to the boy. However, his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the girl once again standing.

"I will continue fighting!" she shouted to him, giving him a thumbs up and small grin as she walked away from him back into the fog. Neji's eyes widened in shock as the fog came towards him, before he could run, or even blink, he was surrounded by it. "What the hell is this? A new jutsu?"

"Mmhmm, and boy it's a fun one too!"

He felt goose-bumps on his neck and spun around, facing Hinata, who seemed to be acting just as cockily as he was earlier. He raised a fist to attack her, but it froze halfway towards her and immediately lowered back down, once again to his internal shock. Her eyes were glowing, exactly like they were earlier, but now he couldn't see the protruding veins signature to the byakugan, or was it just the fog blinding his vision?

"The byakugan sees through everything, yet I can't see everyone's chakra signatures when I know they're there, in the stands. And also, why can't I move?"

"Those are some very good enquiries Neji-niisan." Hinata replied, still smirking as she lazily walked around his frozen body, never taking her eyes off of him. "To answer your first question, the fog is a special jutsu I made to combat the byakugan's abilities, because you see, the fog is made of chakra, my chakra, and thus it acts as a barrier to your vision, as well as any nosy Hyuuga members outside of it. Pretty great huh?"

"Impossible! You couldn't have this much chakra, you're levels were even lower than Hanabi's last time I checked…" he exclaimed, gritting his teeth and staring ahead since it was the only direction he could see. "You checked that… what, 3 months ago? I've grown exponentially since then, nii-san…"

He felt his arm snap and screamed out in pain, wanting so badly to fight back but to no avail as she drew her fist back to break his other arm as well. "And as to why you can't move… well, that's another jutsu, and I can't really explain it to you in detail, couldn't let you in on my secrets to strength right? Heh, for now, just relax and take it, you can't do anything else anyways. And don't worry, I'm not going to kill you, just hurt your body to the point where you won't get back up and I'll win." She didn't let him answer as she jerked her head up and twisted his ankle, then broke his ribs, then finally, she knocked him out with a karate chop to the neck. "Oh dear, maybe the broken bones weren't necessary. I really could have just knocked him out right? Well, what's done is done now…"

…

When the fog cleared and the crowd saw what was left, there were more than a few loud gasps of surprise. For there, standing right in the middle of the arena with her arms crossed and her bangs hanging over her eyes and a straight line for a mouth, was Hinata, and at her feet lay the mangled body of her cousin Neji, clearly knocked out. Chatter broke out across the stadium seats as bets were angrily exchanged and the exam-proctor ran down to check the opponents. Even the hidden-leaf gennin were shocked, for their senses had been completely deprived so they had no idea what was done either. Still, small smiles crossed the faces of Sasuke and Shino, and Naruto was grinning from ear-to-ear as he and Shino jumped down to see Hinata and check if she was okay. "Winner, Hinata Hyuuga!" the exam-proctor shouted with his voice amplified by a jutsu, pulling her arm into the air and turning her for everyone to see. The crowds cheered wildly, nobody ever expected to see this outcome!

"Congratulations Hinata-chan!"

She felt herself being pulled into a rough hug by the blonde Uzumaki, with Shino close behind her patting her shoulder. "Kiba would've been proud to see you win Hinata." he stated, the ghost of a smile on his face. She peeked through her fringe at him, eyes watery with unshed tears and grim face softening a bit. Then she turned to Naruto, whose nose was only an inch away from hers, and realized how proximal they were with a gasp before ducking her head again. "Th-thanks guys! I-I need t-to go to the h-hospital now I think, everything f-feels… n-numb…"

"Sure thing Hinata-chan!" Naruto drew her arm over his neck and wrapped his around her waist, obliviously making his admirer feel even woozier. Shino had lent down to examine Neji, his hands aglow with chakra as he tried to fix the worst of the injuries with a practiced hand that he'd been training for the last few months to use. It was nice to have so many real-life patients to practice his healing chakra on, and he never shied away from the opportunity when it came up to work on someone injured, even if the patient was his comrades opponent. "I'll catch up with you soon Hinata, let me help your cousin first."

"It's o-okay Shino-kun, I'll s-survive till then…" Hinata replied weakly, blushing deeply as she glanced at Naruto and replied to his grin with a shy smile.

...

**Theo here, new chapter for you guys! Now I'm trying to skim through the matches and focus mostly on Hinata (because this story is Hinata-centric, let me just restate that). I'm not exactly sure when I'll post the next chapter, maybe two weeks? Maybe not lol. The chuunin exams are honestly really boring imo, or they've just been rewritten so often in fanfic it's like dragging a net through a swamp… I really want to start a new arc soon, but let's just get through these parts first and see what happens. When I get to the parts I find exciting, writing, inspiration, creative-flow, it all picks up really fast pace. Anyway, wait for my update and see you guys then ^_^ **


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